


Heart of An Avenger

by starbuck92



Series: Hope Burns Bright [2]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Goes Through the Events of AMATW, Angst, Backstory, Canon Backstory, Character Study, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Takes Place Just after CA:CW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-11-26 20:25:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18185321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbuck92/pseuds/starbuck92
Summary: There's one thing Hope van Dyne knows she can do and that was giving herself a chance to find her mother and reunite her family. She's certain it will take everything in her power to bring Janet home, and that means making sure the Wasp was ready to sting anyone foolish enough to try to stop her.Takes place just after Captain America: Civil War and goes through the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp. Direct sequel to Hope Burns Bright Despite All Darkness. I'd highly recommend reading it first for the backstory and relationships that were built up and now continue in this story.





	Heart of An Avenger

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to finish this not long after AMATW was released, but real life got in the way of that. I often felt like I'd bitten off more than I could chew given how more heavily involved Hope was in the sequel compared to the original and there were many times I felt like I couldn't finish this story. Nevertheless, I kept going and here it is, nearly nine months later. I am beyond thankful for my friend Amanda who has been an incredible trooper beta reading this monster for a long time now and stuck with this me and this story. I couldn't have finished it without her thoughts and suggestions. And thanks to Kory, Jenn, and Avery for the endless encouragement as well.

Her mother’s smile was as radiant and bright as sunshine on a warm summer day, and Hope could have basked in the glow forever, content as she could ever remember being. She sat across from her, elbows planted on the picnic table between them, resting her chin in her tiny hand as she swung her skinny legs back and forth, the light breeze ruffling her dark hair.

Janet pulled a card out of the stack in front of her, showing her daughter another photo of an insect. “This one?”

“Yellowjacket! Vespidae family!” the little girl responded immediately, beaming with pride as her mother nodded her approval. She had correctly identified every photo she had been shown, the names and families of each insect effortlessly classified and her pronunciations precise and clear.

The woman studied her carefully, a hint of mischief in her eyes as she drummed her fingers over the back of the next card, quirking her mouth. Hope gave her an exaggerated sigh, rubbing her chin against her palm as she waited, but her own eyes contradicted her seeming impatience, shining with happiness.

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to tell me what this next one is, jellybean,” Janet teased. “It’s a gruff old thing, incredibly rare in the wild. Seeing one is like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

Hope bit her lip and leaned forward, eyes widening as she contemplated what the next image could possibly be, eager to respond to the challenge. Out of all the things she imagined, she was not expecting a photo of her father. Her jaw dropped open in surprise as she pointed at the picture. “Mommy, that’s not a bug! That’s daddy!”

Janet laughed in delight at the reaction, rising to her feet and coming around the table to sit by Hope, stroking her back affectionately. “I’m sorry, baby. You’re absolutely right,” she apologized, trying to stifle her giggles as Hope wrinkled her little nose.

After a moment, the woman grew serious again, reaching for the final card in the stack, sliding it across the table toward her. Hope could feel her heartbeat quicken as she watched her mother’s face, sensing the game had shifted. Janet left the card face down, reaching for her child’s hand and gently guiding it until it was pressed against the cardstock. Hope glanced curiously at her mother, receiving a nod for her to turn it over. She did so slowly, her eyebrows knitting as she studied the unusual image.

On first glance, it appeared to be a woman in a blue, gold, and silver suit, but there were wings sprouting from a device on her back and the head was encased in some kind of helmet, the yellow shield preventing her from seeing the face beneath.

It was unlike anything she had ever seen before.

She picked up the card almost reverently as her mother pulled her into her lap, whispering, “What is it, Mommy?”

Janet pressed a lingering kiss to the top of her head, her arms tightening around her daughter, murmuring, “Oh, my brave, beautiful girl. Someday. Someday you’ll know.”

Hope jolted awake, gasping as she grappled against the tangle of sheets, struggling to hold on to the dream, her mother’s words echoing in her head and the feeling of being safely enclosed in her arms fading with each passing moment until it was just another memory.

‘It had felt so real,’ she thought as she sat up in bed, hanging her head as she clutched the sheets and sluggishly regained control of her bearings as the truth of her reality made itself known. She was alone in her bedroom and Janet had been gone for more than thirty years.

All she had left was the hope still burning bright in her heart that one day she would see her mother in this world again.

* * *

The lab was often quiet in the middle of the night, the lights dimmed and leaving most of the cavernous room in shadow. Half full cups of tea and scribbled equations on notepads were scattered on various surfaces for the next day. Everything was still but for the whir of computer processors crunching numbers on calculations left running overnight, the faint hum of electrical currents powering equipment on standby mode, and the occasional chitter of a trap-jaw ant performing a minor task.

Tonight, however, another sound was added to the otherwise tranquil symphony of scientific noises: the click of a keyboard as nimble fingers rapidly typed, searching for information on the latest developments coming out of the incident in Germany.

Hope sat on a stool at one of the lab tables. Unable to fall back asleep after her dream, she had wandered into the lab and booted up her laptop, scrolling through every article she could find, her eyes rimmed red from exhaustion.

It was exactly two weeks ago that she had received a call from her father late in the evening ordering her to pack up whatever research she had and meet him outside her apartment in half an hour. He couldn’t say anything more, but she heard the strain in his voice. Hope had grown to trust him completely once again in the months following the confrontation with Darren Cross so she did as she was told without asking questions. While in the car, he had explained how one of his former SHIELD contacts had tipped him off about Scott Lang’s involvement with the Avengers and how the Pym particles were now out in the open. Since they had not signed the Sokovia Accords, there was no doubt people would come looking for Hank and Hope, and they had been on the run ever since.

“Dammit, Scott,” Hope murmured as she pinched the bridge of her nose, head throbbing as she found yet another photo of the gigantic-sized Ant-Man taken by security footage at the airport.

Angry didn’t begin to cover how Hope was feeling.

Ever since Scott’s return from the quantum realm, she and her father had been making headway into discovering if it was possible her mother was still alive. Hank had been theorizing and experimenting on different ways to find Janet and bring her home since Hope was a child, making little progress alone. It wasn’t until he had finally told Hope the truth of what had happened to her mother and shown her the blueprints for the quantum tunnel that the work proceeded to evolve in leaps and bounds. 

Hank had confessed he felt like the world’s biggest ass not letting her in sooner. With Hope’s Harvard-educated background in quantum physics, her intellect matched and even exceeded Hank’s old school way of thinking. She simply had a knack for seeing things in a different way that he never imagined, and it had been exactly what was needed to begin making the tunnel a reality.

That all changed the moment Scott decided to run off to Germany and jeopardize everything they had worked so hard on. 

‘And for what?’ Hope thought bitterly.

To fight alongside Captain America and his group of rogue Avengers and cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage to the Leipzig/Halle Airport? To risk exposing the Pym particle technology to the world after managing to narrowly keep it under the radar only months previous in San Francisco? Whatever progress they had made had come crashing to a halt, their priorities shifting as Hope and Hank went into hiding, constantly keeping on the move in their portable lab to ensure their freedom and protect their research.

No, Hope wasn’t just angry at Scott for screwing up. She was frustrated and heartbroken. 

Betrayed.

As someone who had spent the majority of her life navigating through the world alone but for a precious handful of people she had allowed into her heart, Hope did not trust easily. It was something rare and hard earned. Despite her initial doubts and resentment toward him, Scott had gradually won her over, proving himself to be a courageous good man who had been there when they needed him to help bring down Cross.

Scott had shattered that trust the moment he stepped out onto the tarmac wearing the Ant-Man suit.

She couldn’t begin to imagine what led him to his involvement in the fight, but the fact that he hadn’t consulted with either Hank or herself stung. She wondered for the hundredth time what could possibly have possessed him to risk exposure to the whole world after Hank’s repeated warnings to keep the tech quiet.

What was more important to him than risking imprisonment again and being kept from seeing Cassie?

From Hope herself?

Hope ground her teeth as her aggravation bubbled up, sliding the pointer of her touchpad to close out of the browser when another headline caught her eye. She clicked the link, her heart skipping a beat at the bolded letters on top of the story.

‘Former Iron Patriot Paralyzed.’

“Oh, Jimmy,” she whispered as she finished reading the article, shutting her laptop and closing her eyes in dismay.

She had known James Rhodes almost as long as she had known Tony Stark, keeping in touch with him mainly through emails since they rarely had an opportunity to spend time together due his military career taking him all around the world. The article didn’t disclose many details about what happened. The only information that had been provided in the press release was that Jimmy had sustained serious injuries during the fight in Germany and was recovering at the Avengers facility in upstate New York.

Hope picked up her phone and tapped the icon to view her outgoing calls, frowning as she saw Tony’s name at the top of the list with a tiny number eighteen next to his personal phone number. She had left just as many voicemails with no response. While it wasn’t unusual for them to go weeks or even months without contact, she had a sick feeling something was terribly wrong.

Closing the phone app, Hope opened her contacts and scrolled through the list, stopping on another familiar name. For over a decade now, Pepper Potts had remained a good friend and reliable confidant, whether they were discussing business or how much Tony drove them both nuts. Hope blew out a harsh breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and hit the dial button on the phone, squeezing her eyes shut as the line began to ring. She fully expected the call to go to voicemail since she wasn’t sure where Pepper was currently located, so when the call actually connected, she jerked in surprise, eyes flying open.

“Hope.”

It had been a long time since Hope had heard Pepper on the other end of a phone line, the contact between the two women having become more sporadic since the aftermath of the events in Sokovia and San Francisco, but she could never remember Pepper sounding so tired, exhaling her name in a weary sigh. 

“Hi. I’m sorry if I’m catching you at a bad time.”

Hope could hear the rustle of papers on the other end of the line and a bag being zipped up just before Pepper replied.

“I’m just headed home from the office. What can I help you with?”

She bit her lip, still unsure what time it was wherever the other woman was presently. ‘The office’ could be narrowed down to a dozen different Stark Industries facilities around the world. Hope wrinkled her nose and rubbed her eyes with her free hand, uncomfortable at the thought of burdening Pepper further.

“It’s just… I’ve been trying to reach Tony for a couple of weeks now and he hasn’t returned any of my calls. After everything that happened in Germany, I wanted to make sure he was okay. He usually at least sends a text even if he can’t talk. And now I find out that Jimmy was injured and possibly paralyzed and…” She paused and took a deep breath, expelling it noisily. “I’m sorry I’m rambling, but I’m worried, Pepper.”

Pepper was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment but for the faint click of her heels as she walked somewhere. “You do realize that the FBI is looking for you and your father, don’t you? Because of the Accords and the tech Scott Lang used in Germany?”

Hope froze, a trickle of fear racing down her spine.

On the other end of the line, Pepper sighed, her voice softer and slightly hurt.

“I’m not going to turn you in, Hope. I just wanted to make sure you were aware.”

Silently berating herself, Hope leaned against the wall, closing her eyes as she lightly thumped her head against the paneling. Being on the run had left her even more high strung than normal if she suspected Pepper would turn her and her father in without hearing what they had to say about their involvement – or lack thereof in this case – in the fight at the airport.

“I’m aware. We’ve been keeping a low profile,” she responded.

“Good. If you have a secure location, I can have a quinjet sent to pick you up in the morning to take you to the facility in New York.”

“Is Tony still there with Jimmy?” Hope asked, quietly slipping into what passed for her bedroom, grabbing a small bag from the closet.

There was a long pause and Hope began to wonder if the call had been disconnected before Pepper cleared her throat and finally answered.

“I think so. I haven’t talked to Tony since just after Rhodey’s surgery.”

Hope frowned, shaking her head in confusion as she responded, “Why haven’t you… Pepper, I don’t… I don’t understand.”

It took another few moments for Pepper to respond, and this time her voice was noticeably tighter than before.

“Tony and I are taking a break from our personal relationship.”

Stunned, Hope wobbled on suddenly shaky legs, her breathing becoming erratic as the meaning of the words sunk in. It didn’t make sense. Tony and Pepper had been together for years now and, as far as she knew, were an incredibly happy couple. She had teased Tony relentlessly when they had made the relationship public, playfully swearing to make his life hell if he ever broke Pepper’s heart, something she couldn’t fathom ever happening because they were so perfect together.

“You… You broke up?”

The silence on the other end of the line was all the confirmation she needed. Before she could say anything further, Pepper spoke up again, her tone crisp and business-like, the voice Hope was used to hearing when the older woman took command of press conferences and interviews with steel in her spine and ice in her eyes that shut down even the most irreverent of journalists.

There wasn’t a trace of the warmth and affection she had always spoken to Hope with.

“Think of a secure location for the jet and please text it to me. I’ll pass it along to the flight crew that will be picking you up. Be ready by 8:00 a.m.”

Several minutes passed as Hope listened to the dial tone on the other end of the line before she slowly sat down at the edge of the bed, her mind reeling.

She was on the run with her father, all of their research into finding her mother put on hold.

Scott had been arrested again, his actions possibly sending him to prison for life.

Jimmy was paralyzed.

Pepper and Tony were no longer in a relationship.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror across from the bed, noting the dark circles beneath her eyes and the tense set of her jaw and shoulders.

Ever since she was seven years old, she had felt like some higher power took perverse joy in making her world crash and burn around her, as if her resilience was being tested. Every time, Hope had squared her shoulders and found the strength to face the next tragedy head on. Just when she thought she had found steady ground, the vicious cycle would begin anew, threatening to crumble her resolve.

She was afraid of the day she would no longer be able to pick herself back up, buried beneath the ashes of all her hopes and dreams.

* * *

The change in timezones meant it was early afternoon by the time the quinjet lightly touched down at the Avengers facility. Before she was whisked off into the main compound, Hope caught sight of the green lawn where Scott had taken on the Falcon and actually won the brief skirmish to retrieve the signal decoy. A fleeting smile lit her face at the memory until she reminded herself that Scott was sitting behind bars right now, and it was his fault she had a huge target on her back and wasn’t safe outside of the mobile lab.

Hank had balked when she had told him where she was going. He had used every possible argument to try to persuade her not to board the jet, and when each reason failed to sway her, he resorted to begging her to stay in San Francisco. A year ago, she would have bristled, calling him overprotective and dismissing his feelings without a second thought. Now she knew how much he truly cared and she recognized his fear for her safety; Hope had tightly clutched his hands and offered him a warm smile, reassuring him that she would be fine even as she internally worried what kind of a reception she would receive from some of her oldest friends.

Despite Pepper’s promise that no one would come after her while she was on the grounds, Hope still took precautions, pulling the bill of her black baseball cap further down to shield her face, her eyes taking in every detail of her surroundings through the lenses of her sunglasses. Even though there was hardly anyone around, it didn’t hurt to be careful.

Her escort led her to a well-equipped gym where she found James undergoing physical therapy. She had envisioned him confined to a bed after speculating how bad his injuries may have been. The last thing she expected was to see him walking slowly across the floor with the help of an aide, his legs encased in high-tech braces she had no doubt came from the medical research department of SI. It was the best kind of surprise, lifting her spirits and lightening her mood.

James reached the opposite side of the room and leaned against the wall for a break while the aide went to retrieve a bottle of water for him, taking a moment to catch his breath before he noticed her standing in the doorway. She slipped off her sunglasses and offered a small wave of greeting, reluctant to impose any further if he wasn’t up for seeing any visitors.

Thankfully, he beckoned her inside, and though her first steps into the room were tentative, she eventually couldn’t hold back and all but ran toward him, locking her arms around his shoulders and squeezing her eyes shut. He stumbled back against the wall a bit at the force of her embrace, softly chuckling, his voice gentle as he cautioned her, “Easy, kid.”

Hope pulled back slightly, her hands coming to rest over his elbows as she looked him up and down. Her face must have clearly expressed all the questions firing rapidly in her brain and her inability to figure out which one to ask first because he slung an arm around her shoulders and walked them slowly over to a bench by one of the windows looking out onto the grounds.

“I already told Tony and now I’m telling you. I’ve been in some sucky situations and this is damn near top of the list, but that doesn’t mean I’d change anything. This is the hand I’ve been dealt and I’m going to make do with it the best I can.”

Hope sighed as she accepted that sentiment, leaning forward to rest her forearms against her knees, arching an eyebrow as she gave him a sidelong glance. She decided it was best to cut to the chase. “You know Scott Lang acquired the Ant-Man tech from my father. From me.”

A wry grin twisted the man’s lips. “You were always nothing if not blatantly direct and honest.” He settled himself more comfortably on the bench, clutching the edge with both hands. “We put two and two together. A couple of things Lang told Tony tipped him off.”

She winced, tossing her head back and staring up at the ceiling, uttering a broken-sounding “fuck” under her breath as her heart plummeted. Keeping the knowledge of the tech her father had created from Tony was always something she dreaded would come back and bite her in the ass. Instead of finding out from her, Tony had learned about it from a stranger attacking him and the rest of the Avengers.

“Hope,” James called, sliding a hand over her wrist to draw her attention back to him. “Tell me you didn’t know.”

At that, Hope turned to fully face him, looking him in the eyes. “No,” she replied firmly. “He didn’t say a word before he left. Not to me, not to my dad.” She laughed bitterly, shaking her head as she continued, “We didn’t find out until it was all over the news and by then it was too late, wasn’t it?”

James took a moment to study her face, then nodded, apparently satisfied with her answer. They sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in thought until Hope’s escort returned, knocking on the door frame.

“Miss van Dyne? Mr. Stark is off the phone.”

James’ fingers were still lightly holding her around the wrist, and Hope was certain he could feel her pulse quicken. She stared down at the toes of her boots, her voice barely audible as she asked, “How pissed off is he?”

“We haven’t talked much about it.”

She winced again.

James had more important things to worry about than how angry Tony may or may not be with her. Hope felt sick to her stomach, the thought that she was inadvertently responsible for his injuries causing the guilt to bubble in her belly, the taste of bile sharp on her tongue. He must have sensed she was going to bolt because he reached out and hooked her fingers with his own, giving them a tug.

“Look, from the way you tell it, there’s nothing you could have done. You had nothing to do with the decision Lang made to join up with the rogues. It’s not your fault, Hope.”

She could only smile sadly at him, swallowing hard as she met his eyes. “Tony isn’t going to see it that way. And you still almost died because someone I thought I could trust decided to take the Ant-Man suit out for a joyride. I’m sorry, Jimmy.”

James heaved a sigh and squeezed her hand, all too familiar with her mile-wide stubborn streak. There wasn’t anything he could say or do that would change the way she saw things. “I’ll be okay. Tony will, too. It’s just going to take time.”

Knowing he was trying his best to make her feel better, Hope gave him a small smile, brushing a kiss against his cheek in appreciation before she turned around and followed her escort out of the gym and deeper into the facility. She trained her eyes on the back of the man who was guiding her, irrationally afraid he could hear her heart pounding. Eventually, she simply followed mechanically, one foot in front of the other as her thoughts whirled in her mind. Her emotions were scattered like cosmic dust caught in the wake of a supernova, hot and cold, blinding and dark, spiraling into the infinite universe. Hope was so lost in her own head that she failed to notice her escort had stopped at an open office, crashing into his back, her attention slamming back to earth as hard as a capsule plummeting into the ocean without the aid of a parachute to slow her descent. Muttering an apology, she stepped inside the room, her eyes immediately finding Tony sitting at a desk, idly playing with what looked suspiciously like a burner phone. His attention was focused on the old piece of tech and she took advantage of his distraction to compose herself and to study him from afar, noting the healing cuts and fading bruises on his face.

It had been at least four years since they had seen each other in person. She had been in Manhattan on business a few months after the alien portal had opened in the sky and a group of bonafide superheroes had assembled to save the world. He had invited her up to the penthouse of the newly christened Avengers Tower for dinner one night. She had been scared out of her wits when she had watched along with the rest of the world as he rode into the unknown with a nuclear warhead on his back, but none of that seemed to matter as he laid out Thai food on a coffee table in the living area, bubbling with excitement about the people who had become his teammates.

Tony had come such a long way from the unruly boy she once knew. Hope had been so incredibly proud of the man he had become, clinking her champagne glass against his in a toast as she smiled at him. She remembered laughing and talking long into the night much like they often did when they were both so much younger.

Before Sokovia.

Before Darren Cross.

Before Germany.

“How did you get here?”

His question startled her out of her reverie, her focus shifting back to the man behind the desk. Tony’s face was unreadable as he stared at her, and the fact that she couldn’t tell how he was feeling unnerved her. Since childhood, he had always been unguarded around her, never once holding back what was going through his heart and his head, damn near an open book whose pages were intimately familiar.

Hope steeled herself as she walked further into the office, coming to a stop just in front of the desk. “Pepper,” she replied.

Tony nodded slowly, setting the phone down without taking his eyes off her.

There were so many things she wanted to ask him, so many things she wanted to say, but she found herself at a loss for words once again, completely unsettled by the lack of emotion her friend was displaying. It was alarming and had thoroughly upended her equilibrium.

The chair creaked slightly as he settled back against it, one hand coming up to loosen the knot of the tie he was wearing. Without preamble, he stated, “Your boyfriend has a big mouth, by the way.”

The presumption sent a sudden hot bolt of anger through her. “He’s not my—” She stopped herself, shutting her mouth and drawing a sharp breath through her nose. She and Scott had definitely started something, but what they were now, she wasn’t sure. Regardless, she wasn’t here to discuss her relationship with Scott Lang and she wasn’t going to allow Tony to provoke her so easily. The dig was simply a cover for what she had assumed he was truly upset about.

“I’m sorry I never told you about the Pym particles,” she said, her voice softer. “I’m sorry you had to hear about it from someone else.”

Tony sniffed, tearing his eyes away from her, picking up the phone again and turning it over and over in his hand. “When did you find out?”

Hope crossed her arms tightly against her torso, slowly scooting closer to rest her hip against the edge of the desk. “I was twelve, Tony. I had just come home from boarding school for the first time in years and broke into his vault, and I was so scared my father was going to disown me completely if he found out I broke my promise not to tell anybody, especially if I had told you of all people.”

A momentary flicker of surprise broke through the stoic expression on his face, and she wondered if he remembered that he was the one who helped her with the logistics of breaking into the vault all those years ago. Instead of commenting on it, he asked, “Would Hank disowning you have been that bad?”

“Yes!” she shouted, incredulous. “May I remind you that you of all people kept telling me that no matter how much Hank and I hurt each other, he was still my father. I was a _child_. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

He slammed the phone down on the desk and abruptly jumped to his feet, coming around to meet her face to face, his voice a mixture of hurt and anger. “We never kept _anything_ from each other. Who did you always come to whenever Hank pissed you off? Who wiped your tears when you were a kid after Janet died? Christ, Hope, you would tell me everything! Why wouldn’t you tell me about this? Do you realize what that kind of tech could mean for the world?”

Hope didn’t back down, stepping even closer as she let her arms drop to her sides, clenching her hands into fists, her temper getting the best of her as she growled back at him. “My father didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame him. Wasn’t Obadiah in full control of SI while you were off drinking and partying and fucking anything that moved? I may have been a kid, but I wasn’t stupid.”

A stricken expression crossed his face at the mention of his longtime mentor, and Hope instantly felt remorse bringing him up in their argument. While she had never liked the man, she had never imagined how sinister Stane truly was; she had been horrified when Tony had told her how it had been Stane that had paid off the terrorist group that had kidnapped him in Afghanistan and later tried to murder him in a suit not unlike Tony’s Iron Man.

Before she could apologize, he began speaking again, his voice hoarse and his eyes wet with emotion, no longer hiding his feelings. “You had _years_ to tell me after I put that life behind me. Years after Stane. Why didn’t you trust me?”

All the anger that had been building up inside her vanished in a heartbeat, and a sharp, hiccupping cry wrenched past her defenses as she wiped away the single tear that streamed down her cheek. Hope shrugged, shaking her head. “It was never about me not trusting you. There was never a good time to tell you. That seems like a poor excuse, but it’s the only answer I have.”

Tony watched her silently for a minute, his own shoulders sagging. He looked like he had the weight of the world pressed down on him, his face more lined than she recalled, and she tentatively reached out to brush her fingers along the edge of the faint bruise below his right eye.

“Tony. I came here because I wanted to see how Jimmy was doing. And I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

He chuckled, but the sound lacked any warmth. Turning, he strode over to the expanse of windows on the far side of the office, sliding a hand over the back of his neck. “What is it with the people I love revealing all these big secrets they kept from me? Did I miss a memo somewhere?”

That gave her pause, her forehead furrowing in confusion.

“What do you mean ‘people’?”

When he didn’t respond, Hope walked to his side, trepidation making her heart stutter. She had presumed he had been avoiding her because she’d kept the Pym particles from him. Now she wondered if there wasn’t something more that had triggered his isolation.

“What happened, Tony?”

He was quiet and still, so unlike how she was used to seeing him, full of life and humming with energy, that she almost missed hearing the words that made her blood run cold.

“My parents were murdered.”

Hope felt her jaw drop open at the statement, her eyes widening in shock. “What?” she rasped.

The deaths of Howard and Maria Stark had been international news, a tragic accident that had stunned the world. She had been eleven at the time. Hope vividly remembered Hank telling her to stay away from the circus that was to be the funeral, but she had disobeyed his wishes, buying a bus ticket to make the journey down to New York from school in Connecticut, alone and a little frightened but nonetheless determined. Tony had been there when she needed him the most after her mother had supposedly died, comforting her even when her own father had closed himself off. No one was going to stop her from being by the side of the young man who had been like a brother to her.

Rather than answering her, Tony stepped back to the desk, pulling open a drawer and retrieving a folded piece of paper. He handed it over, watching as she read the handwritten words of the letter he had received, the crease between her brows deepening and her hands trembling ever so slightly.

“It was Barnes,” he told her when she looked back up at him.

“The Winter Soldier? Captain Rogers’ friend?”

At his nod, she shook her head, placing the letter on the desk next to her. She couldn’t imagine how that piece of information had come up during the fight at the airport in Germany. How did someone let a revelation like that slip in the heat of battle?

“Intel came in that Barnes had been framed for the United Nations bombing. Long story short, I followed him and Rogers to Siberia after Germany to help them take down the real bomber. Turns out, the guy had surveillance footage of that night. Barnes caused the crash and then finished the job,” Tony further explained.

Hope eyed him curiously, questioning why he sounded so indifferent talking about the man who had shattered his world more than two decades ago. She realized Tony had already had much more time to process the information, but she knew if it had been her, she would have still been raging. Deciding not to press him just yet, she turned over another part of the puzzle in her head.

She had always been quick-minded, connecting the pieces of anything together with relative ease, but she still felt like she was missing a critical component. During all those late nights she had spent reading every article she could find about the events in Germany, she had come across several headlining the fact that there was now a global manhunt for Captain Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Apparently, the news outlets all believed the pair had fled after the rogue Avengers were apprehended. If Tony had met up with them in Siberia and found out about his parents, then…

“You fought them, didn’t you? Why didn’t you bring them in?”

Tony gave a hollow laugh, raising his left hand to rest on his chest over where the arc reactor once protected his heart. “The suit isn’t indestructible, Hope. You know that.”

She narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms at her chest again, her disapproval at his evasiveness clear on her face.

He had the audacity to laugh again, resting his hands on her shoulders and giving them a squeeze before she felt him try to gently push her back. “I swear if I hadn’t known you your whole life, I’d have guessed you learned that look from Pepper. Stop doing that.”

Hope didn’t budge.

Tony glared, working his jaw for a moment, and let go of her. “Fine! You want to know what happened? We kicked each other’s asses, I almost had them beat, and then Rogers used the shield to break the reactor in my suit clean in half. I thought he was going to bash my head in, but I guess he didn’t feel like sending me to meet my dad in hell just yet.”

Whatever she expected him to say, it certainly wasn’t that. She had adored all the stories her godmother Peggy had told her about Captain America when Hope was a little girl, even if she’d heard them several times before. She couldn’t reconcile the man from those tales doing what Tony had just described, but as she looked into her friend’s haunted eyes, she knew it was true.

“The best part was the son of a bitch knew about my parents and didn’t have the decency to tell me the truth. I had to find out about it from some psychopath hellbent on tearing the Avengers apart.”

And that was the crux of the matter, Hope thought to herself, her eyes beginning to well with tears as everything began to make sense. He felt betrayed by someone he had trusted, who had been his friend through so much together. And as she met the cold fury in his eyes, she understood that he now saw in her what he had seen in Rogers. Maybe her omission hadn’t been as grave as the captain’s, but it was disloyalty all the same to a man who valued trust above everything.

Hope flinched, unable to bear the weight of accusation in Tony’s eyes.

“I haven’t told Pepper or Rhodes,” he admitted off-handedly. “They both have a lot on their plates right now.”

Conversations with Tony had always been unpredictable, but she had never experienced this kind of emotional whiplash. The crushing guilt that had been settling into her heart receded as sheer bewilderment took its place.

“Tony, this isn’t something you can keep from them. They’re your family!”

This time he was the one who crossed his arms defensively against his chest, an all too familiar stubborn set to his jaw as he looked at her. His reaction only aggravated her further. She couldn’t believe he had the nerve to lecture her about secrets when he himself had kept his own. What made it worse was the fact that it wasn’t the first time.

“Do you remember the last time you kept a secret like this? You didn’t tell any of us you were dying from palladium poisoning and you were so self-destructive, we all thought—”

That broke his silence. He returned to stand directly in front of her, and even though he only had a couple of inches in height over her, it felt like he was towering above her when he shouted, “Don’t! Don’t go there, Hope!”

Once again, Hope didn’t back down, going toe to toe with him and spiraling into her outrage as she yelled back at him, “It’s not fair for you to be mad at me for keeping my dad’s tech from you when you keep your own secrets from the people you love!”

Tony scoffed, turning away from her and striding to the chair behind the desk to pluck his suit jacket off the back of it. “This is different!”

This time it was Hope laughing in disbelief as she chased after him, unwilling to allow him to end the argument there. “It is not different! You’re just being a fucking hypocrite!”

He slipped into the jacket, buttoning it up and muttering under his breath, “God, you are just like Hank. An arrogant and obstinate asshole.”

The comparison to some of her father’s most awful traits cut deep. Hope had always known she had inherited some of her worst qualities from him; it was something she had struggled with tremendously growing up, wrestling constantly with everything she despised about herself, but she had always tried to be a better person and Tony was fully aware of that.

As much as she knew with absolute certainty that she should be the bigger person and back down, to let it go, his remark pushed her too far and she allowed all the hurt and rage she’d kept inside the past few weeks explode.

“That’s rich coming from the son of the great Howard Stark,” she spat. “It’s no wonder Pepper broke up with you! Did she finally snap because she couldn’t take dealing with your bullshit anymore?”

Tony froze, completely stunned by her words, thunderstruck she would say such a thing.

Hope stood just as still, breathing hard as she stared back at him as the realization of what she had said slowly seeped into her awareness. She felt ill as she saw the brief flash of devastated anguish in his eyes before he regained control of himself, shuttering his expression.

He nodded once, making certain he looked her straight in the eyes as he responded, his voice frigid, “I don’t know why I ever thought you were like your mother. You’re fucking heartless, Hope. You are _nothing_ like Janet.”

And he walked away, the sound of his footsteps echoing loudly in the silence.

Hope slapped a hand over her mouth, barely restraining herself from breaking down as she ducked her head, her shoulders quaking and her other hand clutching the edge of the desk for support. She felt jagged and lightheaded, as if he had sliced an artery with his sharp and cruel words, gashing open the one wound that had never healed. There was a part of her that felt like she deserved it. The other part, however, felt like she was a child again, broken and alone, her world flipped upside down.

A tentative knock on the door of the office caused her to jerk in surprise. “Miss van Dyne?”

It took every ounce of strength she had left to master her emotions, wiping her cheeks and taking several deep breaths before she straightened her spine and turned around as if she was preparing to face the entire board of directors of her company, calm and collected. Her escort appeared incredibly uncomfortable, not even daring to meet her eyes. She spared him from having to say anything further by striding confidently toward him, her voice clear and steady as if she hadn’t just been on the verge of shattering to pieces.

“I’m ready to go back home.”

* * *

The trip back to San Francisco was a blur.

She boarded the jet and strapped herself in, picking a point on the bench in front of her to focus on as she began performing random calculations in her head. It was a trick she had taught herself after her mother had disappeared, to lose herself in numbers and letters and symbols instead of the negative emotions swirling through her mind. The more the tide of her troubled feelings sought to pull her under, the more complex the calculations became, from the basic laws of physics to wave-particle duality and time evolution equations in multiple dimensions.

Her therapist had complimented her on finding a good coping mechanism. Then she had handed Hope a prescription for Xanax. Even though she carried a bottle of the pills with her wherever she went, it often went untouched. Math and quantum physics were her true constants, intangible though they may be. Muay Thai would have been just as effective, but she didn’t think the flight crew would appreciate her kicking and punching their equipment.

Hope was so engrossed in tackling a particularly difficult equation that could possibly shed more light on a problem they had encountered with the quantum tunnel that she was startled to hear the co-pilot of the quinjet announce they were a couple of minutes out from landing. Glancing up, she could see the outline of the city skyline through the cockpit and breathed a sigh of relief. Shortly after, the jet touched down at the prearranged drop-off site, the ramp lowering for her to exit. She barely managed a quick thank you to the flight crew before she grabbed her bag and ducked out.

Five minutes after the jet departed, the lab suddenly appeared a quarter mile further into the clearing, the familiar figure of her father emerging from a copse of trees nearby. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked toward him, noting how he took in her appearance, visibly relaxing upon seeing she was physically fine and smiling sheepishly at her.

Hope felt something inside her crack wide open at the sight.

Everything she had been rigorously holding in through sheer willpower burst forth, collapsing the walls of her self-discipline. Her composure crumpled as she gave in, dropping her bag and rushing toward Hank, burying her face in his shoulder and clutching him close as she cried, “Dad…”

It was a credit to how far their relationship had come the last few months that rather than criticize her decision to fly to New York despite his reservations, he simply held her, sliding a hand through her hair to cradle her head as she wept, his other arm tightening around her waist.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you,” he murmured softly in her ear.

The gentle tone of his voice soothed the turbulent thoughts and emotions that had threatened to overwhelm her until her mind was blissfully quiet, her tears gradually subsiding as the tension in her body diminished. She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes, her lower lip trembling as she saw the care and love in his expression, reminding her of the man he had been before they had both lost her mother and the person she had never stopped needing him to be: her father.

“Come on,” he urged her, picking up her bag and keeping an arm wrapped around her. “There’s a kettle of tea on the stove.”

The pair made their way inside the building, bypassing the lab and going straight to the floor that housed their small living area. Hope sat down on the squashy sofa, pulling her hands inside the sleeves of her hoodie and wiping her wet, splotchy face with the cuffs, pressing the soft material against her heated skin. She breathed as deeply as she could through her nose, sniffling to try to clear it as a few more stray tears slid down her cheeks, and exhaled loudly.

She was tired of feeling like she was constantly on the verge of tears, her heart aching all the time. She was tired of being frustrated, hitting endless brick walls in her research. She was tired of seemingly getting nowhere, figuratively and literally.

She was just so _tired_.

“Hope?”

Her father’s concerned voice drew her from behind the makeshift hideaway of her sleeves. She lowered them to find him standing in front of her with the tea he had prepared. Hope whispered her thanks as he handed her a steaming mug, wrapping her hands around its warmth and taking a slow sip.

Peppermint.

A faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth at the taste. Of course he would make her favorite.

Hank took a seat in the old recliner next to the sofa with his own mug, and the two of them sat in companionable silence. There was none of the strain that had been present between the pair in years past. Things would never be perfect, but the newfound honesty they now shared helped ease the bitterness that had pervaded their lives for far too long.

As the warmth of the tea settled into her belly and the jetlag and her own lack of sleep prickled at her consciousness, Hope began to lose the battle to keep her eyes open, curling into the cushions. She looked up to find Hank standing by her side, taking the empty mug from where she had set it on the end table and brushing a strand of hair from her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

She thought of the longstanding friendships that she had believed she would have forever but were now splintered, maybe irreparably. She thought of how she had been falling in love, only to wonder if she even knew what that was. She thought of her father and all the times she had seen him bent over a lab table, discouraged and heartsick that he still couldn’t figure out how to bring back his wife.

Nothing was right with the world right now. She wasn’t sure if it ever would be, but studying Hank’s lined and worried face, she couldn’t admit that out loud. She needed to give him peace of mind, even if she couldn’t give it to herself.

“I have to be.”

* * *

When Hope opened her eyes again, she felt surprisingly refreshed. She sat up on the couch, a fluffy, old Care Bears blanket that had been tucked around her sliding down her shoulders and pooling at her lap. A lamp in the corner provided the only light in the room and she glanced around as she became more awake, rubbing the sleep from her face.

Hank had fallen asleep in the recliner beside her, glasses slightly askew. Her first thought was that he was going to be cranky and have one hell of a crick in his neck when he woke up. Her second was that she was touched he hadn’t left her side after seeing how upset she had been. She smiled affectionately. Hope did take after him in some of the worst ways, but she also believed she had inherited some of his finer traits. Beneath that tough exterior and stubborn streak, she had slowly been seeing the sweet and sentimental person from her childhood who fiercely protected what he loved.

Careful not to make too much noise, she slipped off the sofa and covered him with the blanket as best she could, then padded to the elevator in socked feet. As she hit the button to go down a couple of floors, she glimpsed at her wristwatch, surprised to see it was just before dawn and she had slept nearly twelve hours. The uninterrupted rest had clearly been needed.

Now it was time to return to work.

She exited the elevator and flipped the switch for the lights in the small workshop, a genuine smile lighting her face as she climbed up to seat herself on a stool, tugging the gauntlets of the Wasp suit closer to examine the newly installed blasters. Before the mess in Germany upended their lives, she and Hank had been finalizing the range and intensity of the tech through simulated exercises. Picking up a screwdriver, Hope opened the casing and began tinkering with the internal wiring, focusing all of her concentration on perfecting something she had helped design and create.

She knew she couldn’t help Jimmy. Her background wasn’t in the kind of tech needed to help him continue to learn to walk again. There wasn’t much she could do for Pepper though she longed to see her and buy her a round or two of vodka martinis even if she herself couldn’t stomach her friend’s alcohol of choice. And there certainly wasn’t anything more she could say to Tony. The vicious words they had exchanged during their fight were the kind she never imagined would pass between them, shredding her heart. And Scott… No, she couldn’t even go there right now.

Hope locked it all away, unable to think about all the pain without losing herself in sorrow.

There was one thing she could do and that was giving herself a chance to find Janet and reunite her family. She knew with certainty it would take everything in her power to bring her mother home.

And that meant making sure the Wasp was ready to sting anyone foolish enough to try to stop her.

* * *

Time seemed to pass at a glacial pace with so much of her old life out of reach. The weeks slowly bled into months and adjusting to her new normal was difficult. Every day was hard, always on the move, always looking over her shoulder, disappearing from everything that had made her life ordinary. Or at least as ordinary as one could be when you were the head of a multimillion-dollar corporation.

It was also lonely oftentimes, starkly reminding Hope of her isolated childhood. With only her father and the ants for company, she frequently felt stifled. She could match wits with Hank effortlessly and brainstorm ideas that baffled and delighted him, but there were so many other subjects that she could not broach lest they lead into a disagreement. 

Scott Lang was a very sore subject.

Hank had flown off the handle when they had seen a news report that Scott had purportedly destroyed the Ant-Man suit before being taken into custody, half raving with the most impressive list of insults and expletives Hope had heard in a long time and half howling in tears over the loss of his life’s work. Hope had been furious as well, but in the end she had convinced Hank that it was for the best. If the suit was gone, it meant that the Pym particles remained secure and no one else could replicate the tech. Scott may have been prone to boneheaded decisions, but she was grateful he at least had enough foresight to protect the work.

A few weeks later, there was another report that Scott had negotiated a plea bargain to be extradited to the US under the condition he remained on house arrest for two years or risk going back to prison. Hank had thrown a fit when Hope had suggested they keep tabs on Scott once he had settled back in the Bay Area, not wanting anything to do with the man he had groomed to be his creation’s successor, but she had remained levelheaded and reasoned with him. Monitoring Scott meant they could be certain he didn’t pass any more information to the authorities or anyone else that came asking about their whereabouts or what they were up to.

She was wise enough not to mention that she missed the idiot.

As much as she had tried to fight it, as much as she was still hurt and angry with him, none of it stopped her heart from fluttering every time she caught sight of him on a surveillance video. Whatever feelings she had developed for Scott had never disappeared, and the fact that she still cared about him infuriated her as much as it wounded her. The truth was she had become accustomed to having him by her side, relying on him and appreciating how much his personality and work ethic balanced out her own. Hope missed his patience and easy smile, his clever approach to solving problems, the way he would make her laugh when he would kiss the ticklish spot just—

Yeah. There were a lot of things a woman didn’t discuss with her father.

Her falling out with Tony was another topic they had buried after an icy confrontation.

Hank had given her room to breathe after her distraught return from New York, remaining vigilant of her well-being from a comfortable distance for a few days, not questioning her about what had happened. That changed while they had been watching the news and eating a meager meal of ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner one evening a couple of months later; their names had been near the top of a list of people the FBI were currently pursuing following the signing of the Sokovia Accords. Hope’s appetite had vanished when a photo of the two of them had appeared on the screen. She picked at her sandwich, acutely aware of her father’s attention shifting to his silent daughter despite keeping her eyes focused on her plate.

“Do you think he’s helping them try to find us?”

Hank didn’t need to specify to whom he was referring. The disapproving tone he always used when it came to the Starks may have been more subtle than normal but it was there nonetheless.

“No,” she answered, but the word sounded hesitant and weak even to her own ears.

Hank hummed, setting his napkin down on the table. “You don’t sound so sure of that.”

She wasn’t.

She wanted to proclaim that Tony would never turn them in, never turn _her_ in, but the reality was she couldn’t be certain anymore. The knowledge that their lifelong friendship may have ended constricted her heart, but the idea that Tony would be involved in the manhunt for them made her stomach twist with nausea. 

“When you were little, Janet would always tell me that nothing I could ever say would turn you against him. She used to think it was cute. Puppy love she called it,” Hank continued, shaking his head. “I always warned you about that family after Howard revealed his true colors. I wish you would have listened to me and stayed away from him.”

She shoved her half-eaten meal away, rising from the table and clutching the edge with her hands, fixing Hank with a cold, hard glare. “I may not know where I stand with Tony. I may not even know if he’s helping the FBI. What I do know is that he’s one of the reasons I didn’t lose my sanity when I was a child and I won’t ever allow you to disparage the fact that he was more responsible for raising me than you were.”

Hank flinched, exhaling sharply at the reminder, his gaze dropping away from hers.

Before he could say anything else, she left the room, eventually ending up in the gym on the second floor. She suited up and took her temper out on a small army of practice dummies until she could barely stand, hands braced on her knees as she fought to catch her breath, beads of sweat coalescing with the angry tears running down her face. She had forgiven her father for a lot of things over the last year, yet sometimes he still said things that made her feel like they were back to square one.

It was on those occasions when Hope still fought with Hank or when the frustration over their situation began creeping in again that she became habitually moody and withdrawn. Blowing off steam in the gym or barricading herself in her workshop to fiddle with the suit were regular occurrences during those first few months when she was physically imprisoned in the lab and mentally confined in her negative headspace.

The framed family photo of a smiling Janet holding her husband and daughter together was the last thing she saw every night before she fell asleep. Sometimes it was the only thing that kept her from losing her mind in those dark moments. No matter how difficult things were, inch by inch, day by day, they were making progress, and that thought alone kept the flame of flickering hope alive.

* * *

Day to day life was often mundane, a routine Hope knew she should be grateful for given her circumstance, but with a mind like hers, boredom was regularly a problem.

Though she often spent her time researching potential fixes to problems encountered with their work or painstakingly constructing pieces of the quantum tunnel with what scraps of material her father had hoarded over the years, she yearned for more than what she was doing. Her life as an assistant to Darren and her duties as the chairman of the board of Pym Tech had often kept her schedule unpredictable. Being named CEO of the company for the short time before the incident in Germany only made her even busier, attending various meetings and conferences, listening to the ideas of employees, and inputting her own perspective on what might help the company move forward into the future. Hope relished all of the opportunities, tackling each day with excitement and fervor, finally feeling like she was in a state of complete contentment.

That life came to a sudden grinding halt, wrenched away in a single night.

A part of Hope wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair, but she had learned at a young age that life simply wasn’t fair and crying about it would accomplish nothing. While things didn’t necessarily become any easier as the seasons changed from an unusually warm summer and autumn to a bitterly cold winter after the start of the new year, she found that time eventually made her new existence manageable, even if it was a shadow of what her life had once been.

When she wasn’t helping Hank with the tunnel or training in the suit, Hope found innovative ways to pass the days. One of the things that surprised her was how much working with the ants relaxed her and kept her occupied. Since childhood, she had an innate ability to guide the insects using the transmitter her father had designed, spending hours of her last couple of summers home before graduating from boarding school playing in the basement. She didn’t have many friends, but the ants had always been there to provide her with company when she was growing up. Picking up the device and slipping it over her ear as an adult was often reserved for work, requesting their assistance with various tasks throughout the lab, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have some fun.

Hank found her sitting on a fallen tree trunk in the woods just outside of the lab one chilly afternoon. She heard him stop in his tracks, a huff of surprised laughter escaping him as he took in the sight of the small army of about one hundred ants moving in sync as if they were dancing to the tune playing from the tiny speakers of the iPad in his daughter’s hands.

“I’m thinking of a career change, Dad. I can give those people who gimmick flea circuses a run for their money with my friends here,” Hope stated, grinning cheekily.

He carefully climbed over the trunk and sat down next to her, shaking his head slowly in wonder at the flawless coordination he was witnessing. “You’d be a worldwide success, sweetheart.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes until the song finished playing and Hope relinquished control, broadcasting her gratitude to their little helpers for taking her mind off things if only for a short time. The ants marched away, some returning to the building behind them while others disappeared into the depths of the undergrowth between the trees. In mere minutes, Hope and Hank were left alone, surrounded by the overwhelming vastness of the still and silent woods, the closest trace of civilization miles away.

It almost felt like they were the only two people left in the world.

Feeling the loneliness begin to settle in her bones again, Hope attempted to stand, giving her father a ghost of the brilliant smile she’d had on her face only a little while ago. “Entertainment is hard to come by.”

His hand on her arm stopped her from getting up, a gentle weight wordlessly asking her not to go, the pressure light enough that he wouldn’t resist if she shrugged him off.

She stayed.

“Hope,” he murmured, waiting until she met his eyes before continuing. Although his voice was soft, there was a hint of fierce promise in his sharp gaze. “It won’t be this way forever.”

She regarded him for a moment, desperately wanting to believe him but knowing he would have no answer for her if she asked any of the numerous questions vying for attention in her head. Rather than respond, she gradually leaned toward him, looping her arm with his as she rested her head against his shoulder, taking comfort from his presence and the understanding she had wanted since she was a little girl.

* * *

Birthdays came and went with little fanfare, although Hank did his best to keep her spirits up, rousing her from sleep when he sent a trap-jaw ant carrying a Boston creme roll on a small plate, drawing an appreciative chuckle from Hope as she plucked the paper mache party hat from its perch behind the bug’s antennae.

Most holidays passed without a second thought and the few they remembered were acknowledged with little more than a glass of wine from the one bottle that had been found in a box of items from Hank’s old office.

They were extra careful when it came to their health as any care they sought would mean they would need to fabricate their identities. Both knew basic first aid and treated minor scrapes and bumps that regularly came from working on the tunnel, but they weren’t equipped to deal with more serious injuries or illnesses. Hope had flown into a complete panic when Hank fell from a ladder one day, but thankfully all he had bruised was his ankle and ego. She gave him his own scare when she came down with a bad case of the flu, shutting herself in her room while she was contagious, finally emerging after several days, pale and unsteady.

There were good days when they celebrated little breakthroughs, smiling and laughing and feeling hope bloom in their hearts.

There were bad days when experiments completely fell apart, when they screamed at each other, throwing notebooks across the lab in a fit of anger and frustration and fear.

There were days when nothing seemed to be going their way.

The seasons shifted again from a cool summer to a warm autumn and still their not-so-new life went on.

* * *

Venturing outside of the lab was always risky, but after nearly two years, Hope considered it an art form. There had been a couple of close calls over time, but so far they had been lucky and they learned from their early mistakes.

She didn’t have much to work with so creativity was essential when there was something that needed to be obtained from the outside world. Stores and restaurants were never visited twice, outfits were changed up as much as her wardrobe permitted, small bills and prepaid credit cards were always used for purchases, and her longer hair did wonders to hide her face beneath baseball caps and sunglasses. It helped that her father had amassed quite the collection of vehicles for their use, all shrunk down and stored in an old Hot Wheels Rally Case, as well as a pile of fake license plates.

The safest approach they relied on was shrinking the building and loading it into one of the vehicles, parking close by wherever they needed to go. Hank would often stay behind while Hope remained as inconspicuous as possible, doing her best to casually blend in with the rest of the public. As an additional precaution, an ant outfitted with a miniature camera always tracked her movement when she left Hank’s sight, keeping an extra pair of eyes out for anything suspicious should Hope be recognized.

On one such outing, Hope exited the station wagon her father was driving, the corner of her mouth lifting as he customarily murmured for her to stay safe as her ant companion took flight after her. The area they were in was close to the airport and tourists and locals alike rushed about the shopping center, allowing her to easily remain incognito in her ratty Harvard sweatshirt and jeans, an old pair of Hank’s glasses perched on her nose. She took her time perusing the aisles with her cart, adding items from the list of supplies and provisions she had memorized earlier that morning, offering an occasional friendly smile to a stranger or store employee even as her eyes took in every detail of her surroundings, never letting her guard down.

There was one last thing she needed in the toy section of the store: their inventory of Erector parts was running low and purchasing a few boxes of the construction sets would help them piece together some of the supports for the quantum tunnel after they used the Pym particles to make the toys large enough to suit their needs. As she browsed the shelves, she felt a gentle tug at the hem of her sweatshirt, drawing her attention to a small girl.

“Are you buying some of those for your son or little brother?”

The child couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, reminding Hope of Cassie with her long brown hair and inquisitive eyes. She glanced around for a parent or other adult, but it appeared as if the girl was by herself.

Hope cleared her throat, shaking her head and grinning slowly. “As a matter of fact, I’m buying them for myself.”

A frown appeared between the girl’s brows as she lowered her eyes and slipped her hands inside the pockets of her pants, biting her lip. “But daddy says only boys play with construction sets.”

She restrained herself from sighing and rolling her eyes at the statement, instead allowing her smile to brighten even further as she plucked one of the sets off the shelf and knelt to the girl’s eye level, offering her the box. “It’s perfectly all right for girls to play with these, too. I had plenty when I was your age.”

The girl reluctantly took it, tilting her head to one side as she regarded Hope with interest. “Didn’t you play with dollies?”

“Yes, I did,” Hope replied, her voice softening as she recalled her own childhood. “But my mommy and daddy encouraged me to do whatever made me happy, and that included everything from playing with my dolls and horses to my construction sets and telescope. If you really want to learn how to build things, don’t let anyone stop you, okay?”

The child nodded solemnly, looking down at the box before she tried to hand it back to Hope. “Daddy won’t pay for this,” she mumbled.

Hope considered her for a moment, reaching for her wallet and withdrawing a couple of ten dollar bills. “Then this will be our secret. If your daddy asks where you got the money, tell him you saved up helping your neighbors with yard work or walking the dog.” Before the girl could protest, Hope handed her the money and rose back to her full height.

“Thank you, Miss, um…” The girl stumbled over her words, blinking curiously. “I don’t even know your name.”

She could have made up a name and the child would never know, but dishonesty felt wrong after she’d opened herself up to someone so young and innocent. “Hope,” she answered. “My name is Hope.”

A smile lit the child’s face. “Thank you, Miss Hope. I’m Nadia.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Nadia,” she responded, turning to dump a few boxes of the sets in her cart. Before she left, she turned to face the girl one more time. “Just promise me you’ll do whatever makes you happy and we’ll call it even.”

“I promise,” Nadia proclaimed, absolutely beaming and earning another smile from Hope as she waved goodbye.

She paid for the goods and walked outside the store without any other interruptions, wordlessly loading the bags in the back of the car before slipping into the passenger seat, noting how tightly Hank was gripping the steering wheel. As she buckled her seat belt, she braced herself for a lecture from her father about what she had done and how dangerous it was for her to reveal her true identity to anyone, but he surprised her when he slipped his own hand over hers in her lap, squeezing her fingers.

* * *

There were many disadvantages to being on the run, but perhaps the greatest was that all of the resources they once had at their disposal through Pym Tech were unavailable. It left a sour taste in Hope’s mouth to have to reach into the dregs of society, playing a dangerous game with dangerous people to obtain what they needed on the black market in order to complete the construction of the quantum tunnel.

Sonny Burch and his goons were the absolute worst. Her skin crawled every time she was forced to meet with him to bargain for another component they couldn’t just buy at the local hardware store. Knowing they had no other choice, Hope would steel herself, plaster on her fake smile, and get down to business. She effortlessly utilized the same skills she had wielded as the head of her company’s board of directors, pressing Burch when necessary, turning on the charm when she needed to woo him, and becoming steadfast and unyielding when she absolutely could not afford to back down.

It was damn distasteful, but it all became worth it the moment they were finally ready to power the quantum tunnel for the first time nearly three years after Hank first showed her the plans.

A nervous energy pervaded Hope’s entire being as she checked her calculations for the third time, nodding to herself once she was satisfied the math was right. She wrung her hands together and stepped to Hank’s work station as he performed checks of his own, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye and taking a moment to reach for her hand, squeezing it gently. Hope smiled gratefully, her own fingers closing tightly around her father’s.

The road to this moment had been a long time coming. It felt like they had traversed to hell and back learning to navigate through their new life together while trying to repair what had been broken between them in the past, all the while struggling to create a piece of technology her father had only dreamed of building. It had taken a lot of effort from both of them to arrive at the place they now found themselves, toiling endlessly to finish their work and to rebuild their relationship into what it was today, strengthened by the hardships they had endured over the past two years. Where they had once stood on shaky ground, the unbreakable bond they had shared when Hope was a child had once again become a solid reality, reinforced by their mutual hard-won trust and love for each other.

She tugged her lower lip between her teeth as Hank pulled the lever, eyes widening as the tunnel came to life, but before hope could begin to sneak into her heart, something went wrong. Alarms began sounding throughout the lab, indicating an overload, and the safety protocols they had built into the system shut the tunnel down. There was no time for disappointment. Hope immediately returned to her computer, trying to analyze the numbers to discover what had gone wrong while Hank ensured that there was no physical damage to the tunnel itself. The pair were fully absorbed in their work that it took a few minutes for them to realize there was another sound echoing somewhere in the lab, and the realization of what it was made them freeze.

The ringing of the burner phone hidden away in a drawer and nearly forgotten was faint but unmistakable.

And the only person who knew the number was Scott Lang.

* * *

“…and I think I saw your wife. And then I was your wife. I mean, not in a weird way or anything. You know, hearing this out loud, I’m thinking it’s not an emergency. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m sorry for a lot of things.”

The last part of the voicemail left on the phone played in her head over and over again as she drove back to the lab with an unconscious Scott buckled into the passenger seat. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he had called mere minutes after they had opened the doorway to the quantum realm, but her heart warred with her head. Little doubts niggled in the back of her mind, whispering that she so badly wanted to believe Scott had actually seen Janet when it likely had been just a dream. Hope clenched her teeth, mentally shutting the voice up as she gripped the steering wheel tightly. They couldn’t afford not to follow up with Scott on the slight chance what he had experienced had been real. Not when they were so close to succeeding.

Scott had predictably panicked when the sedative she had used to knock him out wore off, but she reassured him that thanks to some quick thinking that involved transferring his ankle monitor to one of their oversized trap-jaw ants, his nanny cops would never suspect anything was amiss. Although he was clearly still anxious about being caught, he did settle back down in his seat, glancing guiltily at her.

“I’m sorry about Germany. They just showed up. They said it was a matter of national security. Cap needed help.”

The nickname of the man who had deeply hurt Tony in Siberia sent a brief spark of anger through her as she knitted her eyebrows, barely restraining herself from sounding completely disgusted as she cut him off. “ _‘Cap’_?”

Scott momentarily froze, then promptly began sputtering as he tried to further explain his relationship to the former leader of the Avengers while she rolled her eyes and found herself biting her tongue to keep from responding in outrage. He likely had no clue what had transpired between Tony and Rogers after he was arrested in Germany and her shouting about it wouldn’t help anything so she remained silent. Giving up on his explanation, he ultimately exclaimed, “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t think I’d get caught!”

“You didn’t think about a lot of things,” Hope replied, remembering all those nights she spent alone, wondering what could have led to his actions in Germany. Now that she knew it had all come down to the rogue Avengers knocking on his door that had caused him to blow off all of his other responsibilities, whatever anger had been looming in her heart surprisingly simmered down, leaving her with nothing more than a feeling of disappointment. She had thought what they had been through together and his love for his daughter and quite possibly what he felt for her would have kept him on the straight and narrow.

She had wanted to believe he was better than what she had originally thought of him.

None of that mattered right now. However she may have still felt about Scott, she couldn’t afford to think about it. All that mattered was trying to find her mother.

The car pulled up outside of the lab and they took the elevator up to the floor that housed the quantum tunnel where they found Hank waiting. After explaining to Scott what they had been working on while he had been under house arrest, there had been another round of apologizing when Germany was brought up again. Hope watched from the sidelines as the two men went back and forth over the loss of the original Ant-Man suit, miraculously managing to hold on to her patience. She had told Scott she wasn’t looking for an apology from him. Nothing would change the fact that he had decided to abandon everything to join the rogue Avengers and dwelling on everything that had happened since then wouldn’t change any of it. What they needed was to figure out if Janet had indeed left some kind of message in his head that would point the way to her location.

“I don’t remember seeing Janet down there. I wish that I did! I had a dream about her playing hide-and-seek with a little girl,” Scott said, and the words suddenly stopped Hope in her tracks, snapping her attention back to the conversation.

He hadn’t mentioned that in his message.

“What?” Hope frowned, her pulse beginning to race.

Scott looked back and forth between the father and daughter, his expression confused, not knowing how significant the detail he had shared truly was. “I had a dream she was playing hide-and-seek with a little girl,” he repeated himself. “Cassie and I do it all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“But was it Cassie in the dream?” Hope asked.

“No.”

Could it be, she wondered, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep her hands from trembling. Could it really be? “Where was she hiding?” 

Scott appeared even more confused, blinking in surprise at the unexpected line of questions. “What?”

“The little girl,” Hope stressed, leaning forward slightly as she maintained eye contact with him, needing more information to confirm her escalating suspicions. “Where was she hiding? Was it in a wardrobe?”

“No, it was in a tall dresser.”

Hope let her eyes flutter shut for a second, biting back an irritated response, but reopened them when she heard Hank step into the conversation to illuminate Scott. “You mean a wardrobe.”

“Is that what that’s called?” Scott asked carefully, perhaps beginning to sense there was more going on than he fully understood.

Trying to calm her pounding heart was futile at this point. Before her mother had sacrificed herself to save so many people, her parents had doted on her endlessly when she was a girl, always making time to play with her when they weren’t off on a mission for SHIELD halfway around the world. Hide-and-seek had been a favorite game the three of them enjoyed and only Hank, Janet, and maybe one or two other people could have known those details.

“What color was it?”

The answer was immediate and precisely the one she had dared to hope for. “Red.”

Hope allowed herself a moment to look at her father, seeing him draw a sharp breath at Scott’s response. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, and she immediately shifted her attention back to Scott, pressing him for one more conclusive detail. “Were there horses on it?”

“Oh boy,” Scott murmured, staring at her in disbelief.

For the first time since their reunion, she allowed herself to smile, giddy and breathless, feeling lighter than she had in years. “It’s where I hid every time we played,” she exhaled, heart in her throat.

“It doesn’t sound like you really got the gist of the game.”

She barely heard Scott’s nonchalant comment, instead returning her focus back to her father. Hank was grinning broadly as well and she could see the way his eyes glistened behind the lenses of his glasses. Affection flooded her whole being at the sight of him appearing so happy.

“She’s alive,” she whispered the words aloud, throwing her arms around his shoulders, allowing herself to revel in the moment, her joy unconstrained. For years, they had operated under nothing more than faith that Janet was still alive, never giving up hope no matter how many setbacks and obstacles stood in their way.

This was truly it. Hard evidence that Janet was still in the quantum realm. The hypothesis had been proven correct.

“I knew it,” Hank exclaimed, his own voice choked with tears as he hugged her closer. “I knew it.”

As much as she would have liked to celebrate the small victory, Hope knew time was of the essence. She pulled back, face serious as she told her father, “We need to get that part.”

After the initial shock of receiving Scott’s message last night, the pair had secured the tunnel and ultimately figured out they needed another component to discharge some of the excess electrical pressure being built up to prevent the device from overloading again. Hope had contacted Burch about acquiring what they needed and arranged for a pick up in the morning. If she was going to be on time, they needed to leave now. While Hank retrieved his Hot Wheels Rally Case, Hope picked up her phone off one of the counters, activating the Ant-Cam on the bullet ant she had left guarding the miniaturized Wasp suit near the restaurant where Burch had arranged for their meeting.

The corner of her mouth lifted at the familiar sight of blue and gold and silver, giving her a sense of comfort knowing she had a backup plan if anything went wrong.

* * *

‘Anything’ turned out to be ‘everything’ from the moment Burch revealed his contact at the FBI had enlightened him of her true identity. Quite frankly, she was surprised it had taken him this long to put the pieces together given all of the specialized parts he had acquired for them, not to mention how often her photograph had appeared in countless media outlets. Hank had written him off as a seedy, dimwitted crook, but Hope knew better than to underestimate an adversary. It was why she insisted on keeping the Wasp suit close by just in case, and her forward thinking proved to be beneficial.

She had maintained her cool composure while Burch tried to bargain with her, offering to set her and her father up with buyers promising exorbitant amounts of money, and when he failed to persuade her, he had reneged on the deal to provide the component she needed. She had assured him she was looking to do things the easy way but he stood his ground, refusing to give in and forcing her to walk away.

Hope had never had it easy anyway.

And this time, not being easy turned out to be incredibly fulfilling.

The last three years had been spent perfecting the tiniest of details of her suit using her father’s baselines from the original her mother had worn more than thirty years ago, crafting the most advanced version of her parents’ creation. With the addition of the weaponized gauntlets and her own prowess as a skilled martial artist, Hope felt fearless flying into her first engagement with something other than a practice dummy, an untamed grin lighting her face.

When she unleashed all of her capabilities, Burch’s men didn’t have a chance in hell.

The skirmish was over in minutes. She sent the last man standing through the double doors of the kitchen, knocking him out with one solid kick to the head, and retrieved the bag with the payment for the component now in her possession. Seeing Burch sitting where they had initially begun their conversation, Hope dropped the bag on the table, not bothering to stop as she continued walking toward the door.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Sonny.”

“Oh, our business isn’t finished yet, Hope. I can assure you of that!” he responded, but she ignored him, her eyes drawn to a flickering figure standing in the path of her exit.

Whatever it was, Hope quickly realized a couple of things: it was substantially more capable of an opponent than Burch’s men had been and it was after the part they needed for the tunnel. The two wrestled for the component, Hope using every instinct and anything within her reach to try to beat off the unknown assailant, but the person was utilizing some kind of quantum phasing technology and her gauntlets’ blasters had little effect on it. The blast passed through the figure, not even slowing it down, and before she could react, Hope found herself being shoved by the throat into a column, stars exploding behind her eyes as the back of her head smacked into the marble. She braced herself to take another hit that never came.

Scott had abruptly appeared next to her, stopping the figure from throwing another punch, and kicked the aggressor away in one smooth move she immediately recognized as one of her own. There was little time to process the fact that he had donned the newest version of the Ant-Man suit Hank had been working on because the unknown individual had disappeared and Hank’s transmission had cut out. Racing back to the van, they found him hunched over in pain, the lab and the component stolen.

“No,” Hope breathed, her dreams of being able to save her mother vanishing in an instant, leaving the taste of ash burning in her throat.

* * *

They had little choice but to regroup with Scott’s con artist-turned-businessmen friends, catching their breaths and devising ideas of other means they could use to find the lab since the masked figure had disabled the tracker Hank had placed on it. Hope had asked about the possibility of using a modified quantum spectrometer to track the lab’s radiation signature; her father had agreed that it could work but outside of the lab itself, there were few places they could obtain the necessary equipment.

In the end, Hank had suggested paying a visit to Bill Foster, a fellow scientist he had worked with when he had been a consultant for SHIELD. The man had gone on to become a professor at UC Berkeley, and the trio found themselves wandering through the campus in baseball caps and sunglasses, their determination to find Foster outweighing the risk of possible detection should someone recognize any of them.

The trip nearly turned out to be a disaster. The discussion quickly dissolved when Hank lost his temper, almost coming to blows with Foster until Hope and Scott restrained him. Moments later, Scott saw the familiar figure of Agent Woo outside the building. No matter which one of them had been recognized, their time was up. Before they could exit the office, however, Foster called out to them, suggesting they could possibly locate the lab if they modified the defraction unit on one of the regulators the suits used to house the Pym particles. Thinking about how the regulators functioned, Hope nodded to herself, murmuring, “That could work.”

Scott and Hank rushed out into the hallway with Hope on their heels, but not before she said a grateful thank you to the man who had provided them with a chance to find the lab and bring Janet home.

* * *

There was one problem with modifying one of the defractors: they no longer existed in the most upgraded versions of the suits.

Hope leaned back in the passenger seat as her father drove, running inventories in her head, trying to ascertain if they still had the necessary parts to build another one from scratch. Even if they did, it would take time to construct the piece of tech, the components too sensitive to allow for a rushed job. Once again, time was against them.

“So if we had an old suit, we might be able to track down the lab?” Scott reluctantly asked from the back seat.

“Yes, but we don’t,” Hank responded curtly.

Scott paused for a moment before slowly adding, “What if we did…?”

Hope frowned, turning sideways in her seat to face Scott. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” he began, shaking his head slightly, the expression on his face one she had seen countless times before when he knew he should have done something but had either ignored it or just plain forgot about it. “Life’s funny…”

Putting two and two together, she suddenly realized what he hadn’t done. “Oh my God. You didn’t destroy the suit.”

Unsurprisingly, the knowledge that his original suit was still intact and had been sent through the mail to Luis caused Hank to lose his cool. Hope, on the other hand, was downright elated. Scott had lied to the authorities and cleverly managed to preserve the suit and the tech that powered it, safeguarding her father’s earliest work. She wanted to kiss him but instead settled for a delighted smile, momentarily forgetting her previous anger and remembering how much she loved his ingenuity.

The suit had been hidden in a compartment within a cheap trophy Cassie had given him for his last birthday which she had snuck out of the house for show and tell. They arrived at her elementary school just as her class was at recess and searched for the correct classroom, but Hank hadn’t been kidding when he had told Scott the new Ant-Man suit was a work in progress. Some of the systems were still faulty, causing him to shrink a fourth of his normal size and then grow to the point where he barely fit inside the janitorial closet they were hiding in.

Hope couldn’t help but giggle at his predicament, provoking an annoyed plea for help from Scott. Fighting back her laughter, she hopped up onto his thigh and opened up the casing on the belt, fiddling with the coils that appeared to be malfunctioning and resetting them. All at once, he shrunk back to his normal size, catching her off guard and bringing them face to face, physically closer than they had been in years. It felt like a crackle of electricity passed between them, but before either of them could react, the regulator glitched again, shrinking Scott down to the size of an overgrown toddler, his expression one of total exasperation. Apparently, the part needed more adjustments than she had time to make on the fly so he was stuck in his present predicament.

Hope couldn’t help it. She leaned down to his new eye level, placed her hands on her knees, and grinned wickedly. “If only Cap could see you now.”

“Hilarious. What are we going to do now?”

Glancing around the closet, they found a box of lost and found items in the corner and Hope’s smirk widened further. She pulled a child’s blue hoodie out from the other items and tossed it Scott’s way, chuckling.

“Get dressed, small fry.”

* * *

Eventually they had found the right classroom and retrieved the suit from its hiding spot. After they had returned to the van and stopped at a safe, out of the way location, Hank removed the regulator and used it to test Foster’s theory that it would be able to track the lab. It took only moments for them to receive a successful ping on their screen, pinpointing the exact location of the missing lab.

The building they pulled up to was full of surprises, including their unknown assailant from the restaurant who turned out to be a woman named Ava Starr, the daughter of an ex-colleague of Hank’s, her molecular structure damaged by an accident when she was a child. The person aiding her was none other than Bill Foster, who had been sent by SHIELD to investigate what had happened and had taken Ava in. They had been spying on Hank and Hope for some time and now planned to use the quantum energy Janet had been absorbing for the past three decades to potentially repair Ava’s cells.

A clever ploy and a helpful distraction from a group of ants Hank had hidden in a mint tin gave them the time they needed to stop the pair and escape, taking the lab and disappearing into the night.

* * *

Once they were certain they weren’t being pursued, they found a clearing in the woods outside of the city to revert the lab to its full size and began prepping the tunnel to be opened again. While Hank directed his helper ants to make some adjustments, Hope and Scott worked together to calibrate the final component and install it into the slot that had been built for it.

“So this is it,” Scott stated, watching as Hope wrapped her arms around herself. 

“Yeah,” Hope replied faintly, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “You’d think with all this time to prepare, I’d be more ready.”

“Going subatomic isn’t something you can prepare for,” he insisted, resting his head in his hand as he studied her. “It kind of melts your mind.”

“I mean seeing my mom again,” she clarified.

The thought of shrinking that small had never scared Hope. Even though she had grown up privileged with access to a world class education and never lacking the basic material necessities, life had been tough after the loss of her mother. She had become self-sufficient from an early age, braving the world almost completely by herself, and she had courageously faced every trial, from the trivial to the seemingly insurmountable, that had dared get in her way. Challenges were things she had taught herself never to fear.

Her friends being in danger, losing her father, anything happening to Scott – those were some of the things that truly frightened her. Now that she thought about it, there was one other fear she hadn’t contemplated up until this moment.

“What if she’s a completely different person?” she wondered out loud, her voice hesitant and vulnerable.

“Yeah, like George Washington,” he replied, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

“I’m serious, Scott,” she shot back, though she couldn’t keep the smile off her face at his attempt at humor to help her feel better. It was sweet.

“George Jefferson,” he added.

Hope shook her head ruefully, feeling tears prickle her eyes, smiling through the sadness that stirred in her heart. There weren’t many people she permitted to see her so emotionally defenseless, but once she had overcome her initial dislike of him, Scott effortlessly caused her to open up. “What if she’s forgotten about me?” she asked softly.

Picking up on her need for reassurance, Scott settled down, never taking his eyes off her. “When I was in prison, the only thing that got me through was Cassie. I could’ve been locked up for a hundred years, I would have never forgotten her. I know your mom is counting the minutes until she can see you again.”

The honesty and sentiment of his words warmed her, calming the anxiety she had felt itching at the edge of her subconscious and restoring her faith that her mother could never forget about her. She was grateful he had known exactly what to say to soothe her fears. Staring into the eyes of the man in front of her, Hope could see how much he cared about her.

As Scott’s cell phone rang and he walked away to answer the call, she swallowed hard, looking back on their entire relationship with all its ups and downs, and realizing in that moment with crystal clear clarity that she was very much still in love with him.

* * *

Hope felt a vague sense of déjà vu as she once again found herself by her father’s side as they worked together to power up the quantum tunnel, praying this time everything would work and they would receive some kind of message from Janet now that Scott had joined them. After she initiated her share of the programming on her work station, she took a deep breath and pressed her palms together, walking to Hank’s side as he finished his own checks, hearing her own heart pounding in her ears until the sound of the tunnel successfully spinning up and steadily humming with power drowned it out. Father and daughter shared a look of joy, Hope sliding a hand onto Hank’s shoulder and smiling like a giddy child as he clasped her fingers in return.

It was working. It was finally working.

They eagerly waited for Scott to pick something up from the open doorway, but their hopes were dashed all too quickly as the tunnel unexpectedly began yet another shutdown. Hope fought to control her frustration, absolutely certainty that their numbers were spot on and unsure of where the problem was occurring this time. As she began pouring over the screens, she caught a glimpse of Scott racing to her work station and immediately beginning to type in new coding. Both she and Hank attempted to stop him, but he pushed them away.

“Sorry, I don’t know how much time I have. I need to fix the algorithm. Trust me, after thirty years down here, I’ve thought about it a lot,” he explained as his fingers flew over the keyboard, his voice sounding different than normal.

Hope stared at him, unable to comprehend what was going on. Where did he learn what he was doing? How had he come by the complicated calculations he was entering into the computer? And why were his movements and mannerisms suddenly so unusual and yet somehow familiar to her?

Hank, on the other hand, figured it out first.

“Janet?”

She watched, completely confused, as Scott raised a hand to her father’s face, lightly caressing his jaw and whispering a soft greeting before he turned to her and lovingly stroked her cheekbone, murmuring, “Oh, jellybean.”

It was a childhood nickname she hadn’t heard in thirty years that instantly brought up so many beautiful memories of the person who had given it to her, the woman she had longed for her entire life. Could it really be her?

“…Mom?”

Hope felt frozen as she watched Scott turn back to the computer and resume typing, her mind still reeling at what was happening even as she tried to put the pieces together of how this was possible. To top it off, whatever Scott had programmed into the quantum tunnel made it spin up again, all of their numbers back in the green. Stunned, Hope barely felt the supportive stroke on the back of her shoulder before Scott was racing out to the third work station in front of the tunnel. She and Hank traded looks of astonishment before they quickly followed.

“Janet, how is this possible?” her father asked, giving voice to the question that had been bouncing around in her head, but this time Hope had solved the problem first.

“It wasn’t a message you put in Scott’s head, it was an antenna,” she theorized breathlessly as she stopped by Scott’s side.

The grin she received in return was absolutely radiant. It was physically Scott in every way, but the exuberance and pride shining through was all Janet.

“Clever girl. I’m so proud of you.”

As she watched the pair simultaneously squabble and work together, Hope felt like she was flung back to a simpler time when her parents would play-fight over everything from their research to what would be cooked for dinner. It was like she was a kid again, watching as they poked and prodded at each other as they fought over the numbers, but in the end, they came to an agreement, meeting somewhere in the middle just as they had always done. The elation was nearly overwhelming. 

Her attention was drawn away when she heard a chime ring after they finished inputting the margins for the subatomic frequencies being pulled from the tunnel. As the computers crunched the calculations into place, she felt Scott take her hand and hold on tight as the coordinates locked.

“Bullseye,” he proclaimed.

Hope laughed merrily, a huge smile on her face as she read the numbers on the output screens. “Source locked.”

Scott turned to her, clasping her fingers more tightly. “You have to meet me at these exact coordinates in the wasteland beyond the quantum void. It’s very dangerous, especially on a human mind, so be careful.” 

She listened carefully to the instructions, memorizing and envisioning what she was being told even as Scott continued speaking, this time directing his words to Hank. “Time and space work very differently down here. You have two hours. After that, the probability fields will shift and it’ll be another century before they align like this again.”

Determination lit a fire within her soul as she heard those words, her eyes blazing with her resolve. There wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to lose her mother now. Not after how far they had come. She tugged at Scott’s hand, pulling his attention back to her. “We’ll find you,” she swore.

His expression softened as he cupped her face with one hand and leaned in to place a tender kiss to her forehead. “I know you will, jellybean.”

There wasn’t a single doubt Hope could detect in the sentiment. She knew with absolute certainty that her mother trusted she would find her.

Hope smiled through her tears as she accepted the responsibility, vowing to herself that she would bring Janet home or die trying.

* * *

There wasn’t much to prepare for Hope’s journey into the quantum realm. The pod she and her father had constructed had been completed long ago but there had never been any way to truly test how it would hold up due to the nature of where it was venturing. Regardless, Hank stubbornly insisted on one last examination of the craft; she had stood aside and allowed him, holding back a grin as she absurdly thought it was almost like he was checking her car before she drove off to school. It was something he never had the chance to do when she had actually left for college, she mused, as she had barely been old enough for a driver’s license, let alone had no idea how to drive.

As he made his way back to her side, she could see him wrestling with his emotions. She knew he was afraid to let her go, much like he had been afraid to let her wear the Ant-Man suit three years earlier when they stopped Cross from mass producing the Yellowjacket. They had arrived at a tentative truce to work together after so many years of not speaking, but Hank’s fears had nearly ripped them apart. She had accused him of not trusting her, hurt and furious that he had chosen an ex-con, a complete stranger, to wear the mantle instead of her. Now, as he gently laid his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes, she knew she couldn’t have been more wrong. Losing Janet had devastated him. She couldn’t begin to imagine what would happen to him if he lost her, too. She listened patiently as he offered his last-minute advice, remaining silent, allowing him to talk his way through this if it helped alleviate his nerves. He was just being a dad, after all.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Scott walking toward them, ending the moment when he announced they had to leave.

“What?”

Scott winced. “Ghost knows where we are. So does the FBI.”

“How?” Hank asked, incredulous. Outside the three of them, no one knew they were hidden at their current location.

Apparently, that wasn’t the case.

“I told Luis where we are.”

Hope jerked in shock at the revelation, her jaw dropping open as the color drained from her face. “You _what_?”

She barely heard the rest of his explanation about trying to land an account for his business, her racing pulse thundering in her ears as she followed her father to begin powering down the quantum tunnel, her hands shaking as she started the shutdown procedures. She glanced up at the coordinates still flashing above the machine, throat tight. Her mother was there, closer than she had been in three decades, and Scott had once again fucked them over in the worst way possible.

Hope concentrated on what she was doing, jaw clenched as she fought the urge to lash out at him for being so stupid, while he stood aside and fumbled with his request to borrow the suit to return home before the FBI discovered he was gone.

“I’ll come back, just tell me where you’ll be,” he pleaded.

“Don’t bother,” she announced, lifting her fingers from the keyboard as she paused.

“What?”

“We’ll come and get the suit from you as soon as we’ve found my mom,” she said, narrowing her eyes, watching as a wounded expression appeared on his face.

“Hope—”

She couldn’t deal with this right now, not between feeling the chance to see her mother again slipping away and being scared out of her mind that they would not be quick enough to safely power down the equipment, half convinced federal agents were going to burst through those doors any minute now. Not after having once again placed her trust in the man in front of her and watching in horror as he broke it at the worst possible moment.

“Scott, just go!”

With regret etched onto his face, he did as he was told.

Turning back to her work station, Hope was unable to prevent the tear that slipped out of the corner of her eye as she resumed typing commands, a tiny voice in her head ridiculing her for believing that things would be different this time. She had thought she had found steady ground again, finally locating Janet, making things right with Hank, and reuniting with Scott.

And again, that higher power had slipped the rug out from beneath her feet, sending everything into a tailspin. It took all of her willpower to keep from crashing to the floor, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep standing.

* * *

In the end, after two years of successfully evading law enforcement officials, their luck had finally run out.

The minute they stepped outside of the lab and shrunk the building, they were surrounded. Hope bit out a curse as they were approached, slipping nimble fingers into her hair and hiding something in her mouth, so quick even Hank didn’t notice. If he thought she was being uncharacteristically quiet as they were handcuffed and taken down to the San Francisco FBI field office, he didn’t comment on it.

One of the agents directed them into a small examination room and cuffed them to the table, smug satisfaction radiating off of him. “Agent Woo will see you in an hour.”

Hank was indignant. “An hour? We don’t have an hour.”

“Have you got somewhere else to be?” the man mocked before he shut the door behind him, leaving the father and daughter alone.

Hope’s eyes followed the agent through the window; once he was out of sight, she carefully used her tongue to push out the bobby pin she had hidden in her mouth, using it to pick at the lock on the handcuffs.

“Now that’s my girl,” Hank chuckled, beaming with pride at her cleverness.

It was an old trick she had learned from her godmother Peggy. She wasn’t sure how Hank would react knowing it was the former head of SHIELD that had taught his daughter a multitude of techniques from her days as an agent in the SSR during World War II and later as the founder of SHIELD. Even though Hank and Peggy had remained on relatively good terms after his departure, anything to do with the agency typically still riled her father up. 

Once she had freed Hank, they began discussing ideas to break out of the building. Hope had kept one of their Pym particle discs in a small pouch sewn inside her boot; she slipped it out and pointed to the wall across from her father, stating her intentions to shrink it. It was a dangerous idea that could end up trapping them further and even if they were successful, they would have to contend with evading the authorities in the building and find some place to run to if they made it out.

Not the greatest of odds.

Her father gave her a sidelong glance. “Got any better ideas?”

“Nope,” she immediately replied. “But I’m not giving up on Mom.” She had been analyzing their surroundings and planning from the moment they were escorted into the room, and time and again, she kept coming to the same conclusion. This was their only viable option.

They walked to the furthest corner of the room, tensing as they prepared to run for their lives, but before Hope could fling the disc at the wall, her suit appeared out of nowhere on the table. She blinked in surprise, then lifted her eyes to the ceiling fixture as the lights flickered, finding a horde of ants crawling over it and the surveillance camera mounted on the wall.

There was only one other person besides herself or her father that could control the insects like that.

“Scott?”

“What are you two standing around for? We gotta go find that lab.”

With Hank adequately disguised in an FBI jacket, hat, and sunglasses, and Hope shrunk down to her miniaturized size, they were able to escape the building without being detected, climbing into the waiting van outside.

Once she was sitting in the passenger seat beside him, she traded a small, warm smile with Scott, grateful he had come back for them. He certainly had a knack for making bad decisions, but he was improving on making up for them. She had come around to forgiving her father for his many mistakes over the past three decades. The least she could do was to extend the same courtesy to Scott, especially after he had risked his own freedom to save the day.

* * *

Not keen on being outwitted a second time, Hank had placed a different sort of tracker on the lab. Inspired by his daughter’s idea to have an ant keep watch over her Wasp suit during her meetings with their black market associates, he had a group of ants look after the building. Using the EMP communication device, he was able to obtain street by street directions until they found the location.

Scott insisted on making a list to plan for what needed to be done, ticking each item off one by one. When he mentioned finding a way to make sure the lab was full size so that Hope and Janet could come back safely, Hank interrupted, his face serious.

“Scott. I’m going to dive.”

The instant protest on the tip of Hope’s tongue never made it past her mouth as she turned to look back at her father, sensing there was a greater purpose to the change in their original plans.

“The only chance we’ve got is if you two are out here, together, protecting the tunnel,” Hank insisted.

Not one to let it go so quickly, she turned away from him again, staring out the windshield at the lab, shoulders tense as her heart warred with her head. She so badly wanted to be the one to bring her mother home, but his reasoning was sound and she couldn’t argue against his logic.

“Let me do this Hope, please,” her father pleaded. “Let me get her.”

For once, Scott had remained silent as Hank made his case, looking between the both of them as he listened and when he finally chose to speak up, his voice was soft. “I think he’s right.”

The tension in her shoulders relaxed, and she gave them a nod of acquiescence, knowing in her heart that her father was right and agreeing with him and Scott that her parents’ best shot was the new Ant-Man and the Wasp working together to defend them no matter what.

* * *

Scott’s plan to get Hank in the building went off without a hitch. The ants were sent in to disrupt the quantum tunnel, creating a distraction and drawing Ava out of the lab, leaving Foster alone inside. With a few overgrown trap-jaw ants as backup, Hank slipped inside while Scott dealt with Ava, keeping her focus on him with his seemingly malfunctioning suit. Hope and Luis, who had joined them upon Scott’s request, waited in the van for her father to report he was set.

“Ready to dive,” he radioed once he had boarded the pod and fired up the quantum tunnel.

Hope nodded to herself, ready to signal the trap-jaw ant with the remote for the lab, but her breath caught in her throat as her father continued speaking.

“In case I don’t make it—"

“Don’t,” she sharply cut him off before he could finish. “Don’t say that. I can’t lose you, too.”

The radio was quiet for a brief moment, a crackle of static the only sign he was still there until she heard his voice one more time. “I love you, Hope.”

She gripped the steering wheel of the van, knuckles turning white with the pressure, her heart constricting at the words. Unable to speak past the tightness in her throat, she sent up a silent prayer to whatever deity was listening to give them a break, to keep him safe, and above everything else, to bring him and her mother home to reunite her family once and for all.

The signal beeped in her earbud. He had gone through the tunnel.

Things moved quickly after that. The lab was shrunk down and loaded into the van while Scott broke off from Ava, hopping on a carpenter ant to follow the van from the air. As Hope and Luis prepared to drive off to the rendezvous point, three SUVs pulled up in front of them, one of which was painted white with a gaudy gold trim. Spotting the familiar figure of Sonny Burch sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle, incredulous irritation flooded through her.

“Really? This guy again?”

So much for the prayer about someone cutting her a break. Like countless other times in her life when she had been challenged by something or someone, she was going to have to rely on her own wits and brains.

“Change of plans,” she announced, throwing the van into reverse and speeding away in the opposite direction, catching sight of the SUVs and a few other vehicles behind them giving chase. Burch’s men hadn’t counted on the van being outfitted with tech to allow it to shrink with the pull of a lever. She easily disposed of two of the SUVs using the Pym tech before another idea popped in her head and she headed toward Lombard Street on the Russian Hill.

The other thing they hadn’t expected was just how well Hope knew San Francisco. She had spent two years of her childhood bicycling everywhere in the city when her father began distancing himself following her mother’s supposed death, pedaling hard nearly every day until she was out of breath and sore. It had always cleared her head and bought her some time away from the gloomy, lonely house that had once been filled with laughter and happiness. She knew these streets like she knew the back of her hand. And she knew how fast she could get away with taking the hairpin turns on one of the crookedest streets in the world. Burch’s men decidedly did not as more of their vehicles went flying through the air.

Scott eventually caught up with them, giving Hope the opportunity to turn the wheel over to him as she saw a group of motorbikes following them in her sideview mirror. Grinning fiercely, she threw open the rear door and began launching discs, the first shrinking one of the goon’s bikes directly out from beneath them, the second enlarging Luis’ Hello Kitty Pez dispenser, knocking two more bikers off their seats.

The dynamics of the chase shifted once Ava caught up with them on a motorbike of her own. Hope heard Scott shout, “Up here!” and whipped her head around just in time to see Ava shift through the windshield of the van, her swinging legs kicking Hope out the back doors. Seconds before her head would have hit the pavement, she activated the Pym particles, shrinking herself down and managing to roll into a backflip in her smaller state, avoiding the oncoming vehicle trailing the van. She took flight after them, cursing out loud when she spotted Ava hop onto a flatbed truck, the lab now in her possession. The van had crashed into a parked vehicle, effectively ending their chase; they had slowed before impacting the car, enough that she believed Scott and Luis would be okay, but for now she was on her own.

Hope reverted back to her full size within the cab of the truck, gritting her teeth and using everything in her arsenal to fight Ava and take the lab, but as was the case with their first clash, there was little that truly affected the phasing woman. The lab passed back and forth between them like a perilous game of hot potato as they took shots at each other while also wrestling for control of the truck, swerving haphazardly in the middle of traffic.

All of a sudden, Scott appeared three times his normal size on the hood of the vehicle, startling the two women. Before either of them could resume their scuffle, Scott landed a gigantic punch to Ava’s head, giving Hope the time she needed to snatch the lab and toss it out the passenger window. She shrunk herself down and flew out after it, jumping onto the flatbed and reaching for the lab as she became her full size again.

Normally, Hope excelled at calculating her speed, her balance, and her timing when she was shifting between sizes in her suit, having practiced and trained again and again and again until her reactions were sharp enough to cut through any surprise, the transitions second nature. She didn’t factor in Burch’s SUV slamming into the back of the flatbed, upending her precarious perch. Her eyes widened in shock as she flew backwards, unable to react in time, and her body smashed into the windshield of the vehicle, the lab slipping from her fingers. When the SUV braked abruptly seconds later, she found herself in the air again, this time hurtling forward off the hood and onto the street below, squeezing her eyes shut as she landed awkwardly, her left side feeling like it was engulfed in flames.

Hope had experienced more than her fair share of scraps in her lifetime, plagued with the same hot temper that ran through her father’s veins. It had led to a number of playground clashes, eventually leading to an expulsion from school that impacted Hank’s decision to send her to boarding school, and later it won her numerous competitions after her godmother had introduced her to martial arts. She was no stranger to taking hits.

This, however, was something else entirely.

She hadn’t taken a fall like this since the first time she attempted to fly in the Wasp suit, and that disastrous first crash had happened in their backyard into relatively softer dirt and grass, with her father running to her side to ensure she was all right.

Her breath hitched as she attempted to stand, physically and emotionally in agony as tears burned in her eyes as she watched the SUV speed away. After a minute, she was able to carefully pick herself up off the ground and shrink down to fly after them. Soon enough, she caught up with them again, but as another intense stab of pain pierced her side, she realized her father had been right: he needed the both of them protecting him.

No, it wasn’t just her father.

She needed Scott as much as he needed her, complementing each other’s strengths and lifting each other up through their weaknesses. Keying up her comm, she called out to him.

“Scott, where are you? I’ve got Burch in my sight. Hurry! We’re running out of time!” 

* * *

Luis had radioed to let them know he had the remote to the lab and was now racing to rejoin Hope and Scott, but Burch’s men must have figured out he had it because they were soon all over him. Trusting Scott would stop Burch and recover the lab, Hope broke off from the chase and flew to Luis’ aid, masterfully combining her suit’s power to shrink and grow with her instincts and skill, knocking out a couple of the men inside the SUV and disorienting the others enough to make them crash. Certain that no one else was pursuing them, she flew to the passenger seat in the car, returning to her regular size, panting as she struggled to breathe normally.

She leaned back, closing her eyes for a couple of minutes, clenching her fists as she fought to ignore the pain.

If Luis noticed something was wrong, he didn’t make an issue of it. Instead, he called her name as the vehicle slowed down. Opening her eyes, she found they were at the waterfront with a crowd of people taking photos and videos of a giant-sized Scott, who was wobbling precariously in the water. He had spent too much time at his current size and his energy levels were draining fast, causing him to collapse into the bay.

Thinking quickly, Hope directed Luis to seize the lab before she dove in the water after him, knowing she only had minutes before Scott’s air ran out. She struggled to see where she was going in the murky water, eventually finding his body laying prone on the ocean floor, passed out and oblivious to her frantically calling his name to wake him. There was no way she could pull him out of the water in his current state so she swam to his belt and yanked open the regulator, managing to reset it to shrink him down to the more manageable size of an ant once more.

She protectively clasped his tiny body in her loose fist as she kicked back up to the surface, pushing down the throbbing ache in her side, until they broke through into the open air. Looking around, she found the closest pier to climb out of the water, her heart hammering in her chest as she returned Scott to his normal size, giving him a desperate shake and calling his name.

‘Wake up, you idiot,’ she thought, not even realizing she was trembling with fear. ‘Please, please, _wake up_.’

As if he had heard her, he slowly forced his eyes open, his expression bleary and confused until his gaze focused on the woman kneeling in front of him.

Relieved, Hope couldn’t help but let loose a watery-sounding laugh at the sight, completely high on adrenaline and emotion.

“Hey,” Scott drowsily smiled at her, sparking memories of all the times he had similarly greeted her each morning they had woken up together curled beneath the blankets, content and in love.

He may have been an idiot, but he was _her_ idiot, Hope mused, pitching forward to kiss him and weeping with joy.

* * *

As soon as Scott had regained his bearings, he and Hope had run into the lab, expecting to find that the pod had returned from the quantum realm. Instead, they came face to face with Ava yet again, finding her in the middle of the extraction process that would potentially tear Janet apart. Knowing they had precious little time, the pair rushed to stop her, Hope hurrying to one of the work stations to ensure everything was on track for her parents to come back while Scott began unplugging the cables, disrupting Ava’s plan.

Screaming in fury, the woman went after them both, but this time Hope and Scott were ready. They worked in sync with one another, the muscle memory of all of the training they had gone through together returning as if they had never been apart, tiring the already exhausted Ava, her movements becoming slower and sloppier. In one last effort to finally bring Ava down, Hope flew through the air, but Ava dug deep within her own reserves, dropping her with a vicious punch that knocked Hope down to the ramp.

She actually heard the crack of breaking bones as she hit the floor, blinded by the white-hot pain that erupted through her ribs and barely able to breathe through how much it hurt. She was so stunned, she didn’t see Ava coming after her one more time, nor the way the tunnel flashed brighter as something began to emerge from within its confines. All she knew is one minute she was flat on her back and the next Scott had scooped her up and pulled her away, landing in a heap away from the tunnel.

They retracted their helmets almost simultaneously, Scott’s worried eyes checking her over as he asked if she was okay, but she could only stare at him in wonder, slightly dizzy from the adrenaline rush of fighting Ava and white stars exploding in her vision from her conscious mind becoming fully aware of every ache in her injured body.

As gently as he could, Scott helped her to her feet, one hand holding hers while he kept the other braced lightly on her shoulder, his face etched in concern. Hope, meanwhile, clutched her side, gasping for breath until she finally took notice of the pod shrouded in smoke on the other side of the lab, her whole world coming to a complete stop as a woman emerged from within the craft. Everything else faded away: the acrid smell of burning wires, the unbearable pain in her side, the feel of Scott letting go of her.

Everything except…

“Mom?”

She took a couple of jerky steps forward, her eyes roving over every feature of the woman climbing down from the pod. Janet may have been older, but everything about her was still achingly familiar to the daughter that had never let a single day go by without thinking of her, who would have given up everything in her life for just one more moment with her. From the bright blue eyes that now sparkled with tears of joy to the easy, sunshine smile that lifted the corners of her mouth to the strong yet gentle hands that reached out for her, Hope had never forgotten any of it.

Had never forgotten her.

It was like something out of the many dreams she’d had as she stumbled to a halt, too weak in the knees to take another step, half afraid she would wake up any second to find cold reality crushing her once again.

Her mother made the decision to close the distance between the two of them, her arms wrapping carefully around her only child as if she was most precious thing on the earth, and the embrace wrenched Hope to her new reality. After all the years of heartbreak, after how hard she had fought and sacrificed nearly everything in her life, after all the times she had prayed and wished for this, the warm weight of her mother tucked against her was tangible and real and no longer just another dream.

Her mother was finally _home_.

Hope held onto her for dear life, tucking her chin on Janet’s shoulder as she leaned into the hug, her breath hitching as she broke down, letting go of all the anguish and terror she had felt for so long imagining in her darkest hours that she would never experience this moment.

At the sound of her daughter crying, Janet’s arms tightened their embrace, swaying Hope back and forth in her arms the way she used to when she was small and frightened, cradling her head and placing a soothing kiss to her cheek.

Hope was reluctant to pull away, afraid her mother would vanish if she let go, but she had to make certain she was all right. Her heart stuttered in her chest as she took her first close look at Janet for the first time since she was seven years old, the emotion swelling through her again as she clutched at what remained of her original Wasp suit, unable to prevent her trembling fingers scrabbling to hold on to some part of her.

“I missed you so much,” Hope brokenly cried.

“I missed you, too, jellybean,” Janet responded, voice wavering as she watched her daughter, a hint of her own disbelief that this was truly happening flashing in her eyes. Sensing perhaps that Hope was on the verge of bursting into uncontrollable tears again, Janet brushed her fingers delicately along her face, struggling to stifle her own tears to comfort her child. “It’s okay. I’m here now,” she reassured her, sounding as strong and brave as she had remained in Hope’s memories. “We have time.”

Hope nodded, pressing her lips into a thin line as she processed the words. Time had been a longstanding foe, something to fight tooth and nail against, an adversary she knew she could never truly beat. Now, however, she could finally see it as something she could enjoy, not only wanting to know everything her mother had seen and done while she remained in the quantum realm, but looking forward to becoming reacquainted, content to simply be by her side.

There was one thing she had to make certain never happened again first.

“No more last-minute business trips, okay?” she quipped, only half-joking, and a burst of laughter shook Janet’s shoulders.

“I promise,” she replied as she regained control of herself, her expression earnest as she looked intently into her daughter’s eyes, making sure Hope knew she intended to keep her word.

“It’s okay, it’s all right, just don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” a voice called out from somewhere behind them.

If anything could draw her attention away from her mother, it was the sound of her father finally making his own way out of the pod. With all of her focus concentrated on seeing Janet again, she had almost forgotten it was Hank who had bravely embarked into the unknown to retrieve her. She raced to his side, breathing a sigh of relief upon seeing he was okay.

“Dad…”

She threw her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close, her eyes drifting shut as she felt him return the hug, grateful he was safe. Breaking apart, she cupped his face in her hands and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, blinking back her tears as she whispered a heartfelt thank you. Hank nodded in return, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face and kissing her temple, a slight tremor in his voice as he quietly said, “We did it, sweetheart. We brought her home.”

The reunion was abruptly interrupted by the sound of Ava waking from where she had crumpled near the pod, head thrashing back and forth as she tried to figure out what had happened.

Adrenaline rushed through Hope’s veins at the sight, a fierce flame of protectiveness igniting within her. Her family was together and no one would ever try to tear them apart again as long as she had anything to say about it. She took two steps forward to confront the other woman, but Janet stopped her before she could get any closer.

She watched warily as her mother approached Ava, who appeared to be phasing in and out even more erratically and out of control. Hope was ready to spring into action should the other woman do anything to hurt her mother, every muscle coiled tight with tension, but her trepidation proved to be unnecessary. Janet carefully reached out to Ava, the tips of her fingers glowing bright as some kind of energy transfer occurred between the two women, and within moments, Ava’s form seemed to stabilize.

“Did you know she could do that?” she heard Scott ask Hank, his voice laced with wonder.

Hope wasn’t sure what she had just witnessed, but she didn’t have time to ask questions because Luis rushed into the lab, warning them that the police were on the way. Once again, Scott came through for them, devising a plan to misdirect the authorities, leaving his empty giant-sized suit outside of a building halfway across the city to distract Woo and his fellow agents and give Ava and Foster time to escape.

Hope watched in amusement from her perch on top of a streetlight as they demanded Scott reduce himself. As if on cue, the suit suddenly deflated, revealing there was no one inside before she pressed the remote to shrink it, while at the same time, Hank shrunk the lab to its portable size, safely loading it up in Luis’ van. As the agents hurried back to their SUV, Hope dove in and retrieved the suit, undetected, and then circled back around to the waterfront to rejoin her parents.

In essence, she was ultimately flying home.

* * *

Evening had descended upon the Bay Area by the time the lab was set up in a wooded area near a beach north of the city, the stars winking into view one by one as the sun set and the sky darkened. Hope and Scott stood just outside the main doors, holding hands as they faced one another, exchanging soft, slow kisses. He had returned a couple of hours after the FBI had removed his ankle monitor, wanting to make sure the family had settled in properly, but Hope had been waiting for him, greeting him with her lips. She wasn’t sure how long they had been out there until she heard the doors to the lab open and Hank stepped outside, Janet trailing after him. The couple broke apart and put some space between them as if nothing had been happening, trying to hide their guilty expressions.

Before either of them could get a word in, Hank surprised them all, handing Scott a small, silver case embossed with the Pym Tech logo, opening it to reveal the newest Ant-Man suit in its miniaturized state.

“This belongs to you,” he told the younger man. “It still has some kinks that need to be worked out, but I expect to see you here regularly to help me figure them out.”

Scott had sputtered his gratitude for a brief moment before he frowned, turning his attention to Hope. “You didn’t put him up to this? Was that genuine? I know you’ve come around to being sweet on me but I don’t think Hank feels the same way.”

Hope opened her mouth to deny any involvement, then thought better of it and decided to say nothing instead, which allowed Hank to declare, “I still think you’re full of shit, Scott.”

The comment prompted Janet to lightly smack his shoulder and tug him back inside and toward the elevator, but not before Scott could call out, “I love you, too, Hank!”

The tips of Hope’s ears burned bright red as she dropped her forehead to Scott’s shoulder, actually whining in her embarrassment. “Why do I feel like a teenager again?”

Scott chuckled, one hand coming up to run his fingers through her hair as he nuzzled her temple. “Go be with your family,” Scott said softly, brushing his lips against her hairline. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Hope smiled in response, taking his other hand and rubbing her thumb along the back of it. “Say hi to Cassie for me.”

He nodded, leaning down for one more kiss before he stepped back, activating the suit and slipping into it, giving her a boyish smile before his helmet locked into place and he shrunk back down, a carpenter ant appearing out of nowhere to catch him and fly him back home.

She stood alone for a few more minutes, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her pants as she tilted her head back, the moonlight illuminating her face and the light ocean breeze ruffling her hair, her expression one of complete peace.

* * *

Hope rested her head against the tiled wall of the shower, her eyes fluttering shut as she relished the feel of the warm water cascading over her bruised and aching body. 

She had wandered back up to the living area of the lab, finding everything quiet, and assumed her parents had gone to bed. Although she was exhausted, she had found herself padding to the bathroom, deciding a shower would help relax her and cleanse the dirt and grime she could feel covering almost every inch of her skin. As she had peeled off each article of clothing, she winced as the damage became apparent. Her limbs were relatively unscathed, a couple of scrapes and a few small bruises dotting her arms and legs. Her torso and back, on the other hand, looked like someone had used her for a punching bag.

She finished washing, being extra careful of her left side, then stepped out of the stall, drying and tugging on some clean underwear, a t-shirt, and a pair of pajama bottoms. Attempting to towel dry her hair turned out to be an unexpected challenge; she winced every time she tried to lift her arms above her head, eventually giving up and deciding to let her hair dry naturally.

Her footsteps were soundless as she walked barefoot toward her room, but she paused, eyes drawn to the light coming from the half open door of her father’s room. Feeling like a little girl again, Hope slowly continued toward the door, stopping at the threshold and peeking inside. Hank was out cold, curled against Janet who was still awake, showered and changed into one of Hank’s t-shirts and boxers, sitting up and thumbing through a photo album, her face a strange expression of nostalgia and sorrow.

Although Hope had been careful to not make a sound, Janet had always had a sixth sense when it came to her kid, raising her eyes and schooling her features into a warm smile, patting the spot on the bed next to her, her voice hushed so as to not wake her father. “Jellybean…”

Hope climbed in next to her mother, tucking her head against Janet’s shoulder and reaching for one of her hands, clasping their fingers together. She had so many questions she wanted to ask about what she had experienced. Did she have a shelter? How did she find food and water? How did she manage to hold on to her sanity having spent decades isolated and cut off from everything she knew and everyone she loved?

No, she believed she already knew the answer to that last question. Her mother had always been the strongest person she knew. In all the time Janet had been gone, Hope had drawn inspiration from that strength, calling upon it whenever she felt the world threaten to crumble beneath her feet. It had helped her survive some of her darkest days, knowing her mother would want her to persevere and fight past her demons.

Instead, she snuggled further into Janet’s side, shifting her attention to the open album in her mother’s lap, the corner of her mouth lifting as she saw a picture of herself and Hank at her college graduation. Her father had made an unexpected appearance, and though they hadn’t been on the best of terms, there was a part of her that had been pleasantly surprised that Hank had joined in on the festivities.

Janet traced each of their faces with the tip of her forefinger, then slid it down to Hope’s crimson and black commencement regalia, stopping at the numerous honors cords hanging around her neck. “You graduated from Harvard,” she murmured, sounding incredibly proud, but some of the sadness she had seen in her mother’s face earlier crept into her voice as well.

Hope cuddled closer, her eyes suddenly stinging with tears, wanting nothing more than to comfort her mother but feeling helpless, not sure what to do to make her feel better.

She felt Janet turn her head slightly as if she was scrutinizing the photo more carefully, her fingers tapping the edges as she hummed curiously. “How… How old were you when this was taken?”

Hope swallowed hard, knowing her mother wasn’t going to like the answer and it was likely to lead to more difficult questions, but she had never lied to Janet and she wasn’t about to start now. “Nineteen,” she whispered.

“Nineteen,” her mother repeated, sounding hoarse, and Hope dared to glance up at her, watching as Janet’s gaze fell upon her sleeping husband, her eyes narrowing slightly and her shoulders rising as she took a deep breath and expelled it noiselessly.

One of the very few things her parents had truly fought over was whether or not to allow Hope’s education to proceed at a more advanced rate when she was a child. While her father had been all for the idea of bumping his brilliant daughter up a couple of grades, Janet had adamantly refused, insisting she wanted her kid to experience as regular a childhood as possible. She was afraid of how her mother would react once she found out Hank had gone against her wishes, even going so far as sending her to boarding school across the country when he couldn’t handle his wayward girl anymore. It was the tip of the iceberg of all the things Janet would have done differently, she ruminated.

Hope was extraordinarily overjoyed to have her mother back in her life, but that didn’t blind her to the fact that some of the conversations yet to come were going to be trying. There were many grim and ugly things from her past she was hesitant to revisit and she wanted to spare Janet from knowing the unpleasant details for as long as she could.

The sound of the album being closed drew her back to the present. Janet turned to her, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she reached up, tucking her daughter’s hair behind her ear and clearly fighting to maintain her composure. “I’m sorry, Hope. I missed everything. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you, baby.”

In an instant, Hope wrapped her arms around the woman, gritting her teeth as the movement jarred her side, but she could care less about her own pain. She shook her head, her face pressed against Janet’s neck, her own tears wetting the skin there, and hugged her as hard as she could, her voice small but determined, the fierce love evident in her words. “Don’t. You have nothing to apologize for. I would’ve made the same decision you did. You’re here now, Mom, and that’s all that matters to me.”

She felt Janet nod her head and closed her eyes at the sensation of her mother’s hands running lightly up and down her back as she leisurely rocked them both back and forth. The movements were calming, quieting the hurricane of emotions swirling at the center of Hope’s heart. She became acutely aware of the fact that it had been days since she last slept and the fatigue she had shoved to the recesses of her mind began hitting her like a ton of bricks now that her family was safe.

It was the soothing sensation of her mother carding her fingers through her hair, one of many old habits of Janet’s that Hope had dearly missed, that allowed her to finally succumb to sleep.

* * *

It could have been only minutes or several hours since she closed her eyes. Hope wasn’t sure. All she knew is she had been completely dead to the world, her weary mind fully shut off in the deepest of sleeps, and the next she was jerking violently awake, a short, sharp scream tearing from her throat.

“Hope? Oh my God, baby, what’s wrong? What did I do?”

Her eyes flew open at the sound of her mother’s panicked voice, her breaths coming in quick, choppy pants as she ground her teeth together, the pain in her ribs feeling like someone had lit a fire inside her torso. She was lying prone on the bed and the realization made her frown; she distinctly remembered falling asleep sitting up in her mother’s arms. Had Janet tried to move her?

The older woman was kneeling next to her on the mattress, rattled at her daughter’s reaction, when she caught sight of something that made her gasp. She gently tugged at the hem of the shirt Hope was wearing which had ridden up slightly, her eyes widening in shock at the expansive myriad of bruises obscuring what was normally pale, freckled skin.

Hank, who had startled awake upon hearing his daughter yell, rushed over to the side of the bed, clearly still struggling to shrug off sleep, and rasped in confusion, “Janet, what’s going on?”

Janet ignored him for the time being, her hands carefully examining her daughter, watching the way she fought to take a deep breath, never achieving more than rapid gasps. “I think you may have cracked some ribs,” she murmured to Hope, slipping one hand up to her face, her thumb lightly stroking her cheekbone. Turning to Hank, she added, “We need to take her to a doctor.”

Father and daughter began to protest, Hope insisting that she would be fine and Hank contending that it was too dangerous because the FBI was still searching for them, but Janet stunned them both into silence as she smacked the headboard with the palm of her hand, eyes flashing in fury.

“Dammit, Henry, I am not going to fuck around when it comes to the health of our kid! She could be bleeding internally and I sure as hell didn’t wait all this time to see her again only to risk losing her! I don’t care if I have to shrink her down and carry her myself, I’m going to get her medical attention!”

If Hope wasn’t in excruciating pain, she probably would have snickered at the expression on her father’s face, gaping like a goldfish and eyes as wide as saucers behind his glasses, definitely awake now as he gawked at Janet. Clearly, he had made the mistake of forgetting his wife’s intensity when it came to the well-being of their only child.

Instead, she slid a hand onto her mother’s knee, squeezing gently to try to calm her down, then looked at her father. “Call Pepper.”

It was a gamble and she knew it. She hadn’t spoken to Pepper in over two years, cutting off all contact with her after Hope and Hank had truly gone underground to evade the FBI. She hadn’t risked reaching out to her since then, half worried Pepper would shut her out again after their last conversation, half afraid of unintentionally reeling her into the mess she and her father were in. But she knew Pepper, and she was absolutely certain the woman who had become like an older sister to her would do everything in her power to help a friend. It was in her nature.

“Pepper? Who is Pepper?” her mother questioned.

Hank took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose like he always did at the onset of a headache. “She runs Stark Industries.”

It was Janet’s turn to gape at that piece of information. “SI? But… Why isn’t Howard running the company?”

Hope winced. There was so much her mother didn’t know yet, years and years of history that she was completely unaware of that had transpired while she had been stuck in the quantum realm. The task of catching her up was going to be monumental.

It would have to wait for some other time, Hope thought wryly, her eyes slipping shut again from the pain and fatigue, unconsciousness dragging her back into blackness.

* * *

The steady beep of a heart monitor and the soft murmurs of two very distinct, familiar voices eventually pulled Hope back to consciousness. Opening her eyes proved to be a struggle, but after a couple of tries she managed to crack them open, squinting at the two figures sitting side by side next to where she lay slightly propped up in an unknown bed. It felt like something out of a dream to see her mother with her arm wrapped around Tony Stark.

Hope closed her eyes for a brief moment, licking her lips and furrowing her forehead in confusion. The last time she had seen Tony, they had shouted horrible things at one another, their initial argument taking an ugly turn into what wound up being one of the worst fights Hope had ever experienced. She had been involved in plenty throughout her life, but she had never imagined she and Tony would ever end up screaming such cruel things to each other the way they had that afternoon. She had returned home, hurt and shaken to the core, certain their lifelong friendship was over.

She opened her eyes again, her vision a little clearer as she fought the haze of whatever drugs must have been running through her system, but the sight in front of her remained the same. Tony sat wide-eyed and silent as he listened to Janet, her voice too low for Hope to be able to make out what she was saying.

Despite her grogginess from the medication, the image triggered a long-forgotten memory of a time shortly after Janet’s supposed death, sitting side by side with a teenaged Tony, who had valiantly fought to hide his own grief from her as he tried to console a traumatized seven-year-old girl who had lost her entire world. Hope knew Tony had thought the world of Janet and he had been devastated by her loss. Losing Maria so soon after had nearly destroyed him, and the memories of what life had been like for both of them during those years still haunted Hope today. Her heart ached seeing him wrapped up in a motherly hug, reminding her of the boy who had lost just as much as she had.

After a couple of minutes, Janet noticed she was awake and gently released Tony from her arms before springing forward, running a soft hand against the side of her head.

“Hope? Can you hear me?”

“Mom?” she rasped, throat dry. “What happened?”

Janet reached for a glass of water on the bedside table, bringing it to her daughter’s lips and holding it steady as she downed it in just a few gulps. “You gave us a good scare is what happened.” She set the glass back on the table, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking one of Hope’s hands. “You passed out. Your father managed to find your phone and called Ms. Potts. We still couldn’t wake you, so she gave us a number to call to help transport you to this private clinic and she advised us that someone would come meet us here to make sure everything was taken care of.”

At this, she turned her attention back to Tony, giving him a warm, affectionate smile. “Mr. Stark turned out to be that someone.”

The slightly disbelieving stare in Tony’s eyes softened at the look, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, but he continued to remain uncharacteristically quiet.

Janet chuckled and returned her focus back to her daughter, brushing her hair back from her face and tenderly kissing her forehead. “I’ll be outside with your dad and Scott. Ms. Potts threatened to have them both sedated if they didn’t calm down after seeing your visitor here. Personally, I wish I could have recorded that,” she grinned cheekily, giving her a wink.

Before she left the room, Janet gently squeezed Tony’s forearm and kissed the side of his head, murmuring, “I’ll be just outside if you kids need me, tootsie roll.”

Tony blinked in surprise, the tips of his ears going beet red at the old nickname. Hope heard it as well and couldn’t hold back a watery-sounding laugh, the sound ending in a hiss as she clutched at her side as it gave a dull throb. Tony shot up from his chair and took two quick steps closer to her bedside, his face alarmed, but she shook her head, her grimace of pain fading back into an amused smirk.

“I forgot she used to call you that.”

“So did I,” he sheepishly admitted, moving to sit in the spot Janet had just vacated at the edge of her bed.

She took the opportunity to study him properly, noting that he looked better than the last time she had seen him, heartbroken and so angry, his shoulders bowed with the weight of the world. He carried himself more lightly, almost the way she remembered from years past when he was young and carefree, before the Avengers, even before Iron Man, yet without the wildness that had earmarked him as a party-hard playboy.

He slowly laid his hand on the bed beside her own, palm up, letting her make the decision whether or not to take it. She met his eyes, her heart constricting at the naked vulnerability she found, and inched her own fingers toward his, something in her soul settling in serenity as he carefully closed his fingers around hers.

“You know, somewhere along the way, you must have finally learned the whole point of hide-and-seek was to hide and not be found, Connect Four,” he said softly.

She tilted her head to one side, not quite comprehending what he was trying to say.

He glanced down at their clasped hands, his voice sounding suspiciously like his throat was tight with tears. “After New York… God, I felt like an asshole. The way I treated you…” He shook his head and bit his lip. “I wanted to apologize, but I had no idea where you’d disappeared to. I tried. I tried, but you hid too good, Hope.” Tony laughed shortly, raising tear-filled eyes back to her own. “You’ve always been too good for me.”

Hope choked back a cry, her grasp on his hand tightening as her own tears began sliding down her cheeks. Tony had always had a way with words, but she had grown up speaking his language. “I’m sorry, too, Tony.” She wiped at her eyes with her free hand, feeling the guilt she had tucked into the corner of her heart fade at the exchanged apologies, but there was one more thing she had to make certain he knew. She tapped her forefinger over the back of his hand as she continued, “And you have always been one of the best parts of my life. That’s never going to change.”

Tony gently laughed again, a sparkle in his eyes, unable to resist teasing her just a little bit. “You’re not even going to remember this conversation in the morning, are you? You are so drugged up, you’re going to wake up tomorrow still hating me.”

She rolled her eyes, grinning widely and shaking her head, but her voice was honest and kind when she responded, “I could never hate you, you idiot. I love you.”

He swallowed hard at that, his eyes shining brightly in the dimly lit room, completely overcome. Tony lifted her hand to brush a kiss against her knuckles, not bothering to hide the tears that ran from his cheeks on to her skin.

They sat in companionable silence holding hands until Hope could feel the effects of the painkillers she’d been given making her drowsy again, her eyes beginning to flutter shut. As she drifted back to sleep, she heard Tony speak again, his voice barely audible, his lips still pressed to the back of her hand.

“There’s a place for you in upstate New York if you want it, Hope. I can’t think of anyone else who deserves it more than you. You’ve always had the heart of an Avenger.”

* * *

Three Months Later

It was breezy up on the rooftop, but it provided two things. One was that there was a sense of security that random passerby wouldn’t wander in on their experiment as they waited for Scott to secure the quantum particles. The second was that it provided one hell of a view Hope thought as she looked around, breathing in the fresh air, waiting for Scott to radio back after completing his mission into the quantum realm.

Things had been going remarkably well the last few months since her mother had come home. They had shared plenty of time as a family again, from the mundane, everyday things normal families did like share meals together and walking on the beach, to the extraordinary tasks of continuing their research into the quantum realm, breaking ground in remarkable ways. They had their share of bad days, mostly when Janet would discover information that would turn her world upside down, but Hope and Hank were infinitely patient with her, providing unconditional support for the woman they both loved. The good days outnumbered the bad, however, and although they remained in hiding for the time being, Hope truly enjoyed getting used to this new normal.

She and Scott were becoming reacquainted with one another as well. After Hope’s injuries had healed, date nights had become a regular occurrence. The couple were creative with their outings, sometimes bringing Cassie along and other times spending time by themselves, watching movies in a miniaturized mock drive-in with a laptop or cooking together or ‘other stuffing’ together.

The radio began crackling and Scott’s voice called from the other side of the quantum realm. “Okay! Healing particles secured for our new Ghost friend,” he proclaimed.

“Great,” she responded, grinning at how easy it turned out to be, receiving nods from both Hank and Janet that tunnel was prepped and ready to retrieve Scott from the other side. “Preparing for reentry in five, four, three—"

Hope abruptly stopped the countdown as the sound of metal crashing into metal reached her ears from the street below. Before she even thought about checking to see if an accident had occurred, the distinctive sound of a propeller airplane’s engine sputtering echoed in the air nearby, and she turned toward the noise just in time to see the small aircraft spinning wildly out of control. Confused, she twisted around to ask Hank what was going on, but the sight before her stole the air from her lungs.

Her father was slowly disappearing into what appeared to be ashes.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, reaching a hand out as if she could prevent what was happening. Her eyes widened in horror, however, as she witnessed her own fingers beginning to dissolve. Fear unlike she anything she had ever experienced surged through her as she turned toward her mother, gasping in shock when she saw the same thing happening to the woman next to her.

“Mom!” she cried as Janet tried reaching for her, whispering her name.

Her last thought before she disappeared completely was that she should have known better than to expect her happiness to last, the hope she'd always harbored that everything would be okay snuffed out like a bright flame finally extinguished, plunging everything into darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me for that ending. I fully intend to write an epilogue to this journey once Endgame has been released, whatever the outcome of the movie may be.
> 
> Thoughts, comments, and feedback would be appreciated! Thank you for reading!


End file.
